Abolishing kindergarten fees has been a Reform Party campaign pledge in Tallinn since 2017, Reform Party MP and board member Õnne Pillak noted.

However, her party-mates in several other municipalities do not back the policy. According to Pillak, each municipality gets to decide for itself how early learning is carried out.

"All local branches in our party create their own programs for the elections. They get this opportunity because local people know life there best. This is why in one municipality the fee might be abolished, while in another it won't. In Tallinn, our position is that we want to eliminate the kindergarten fee," Pillak summed up.
Pillak said that the current state budget situation has meant this cannot go ahead, however.

Eesti 200 — Reform's partner both in the national government and in the capital — finds abolishing the fee is harmful to early education in the capital, and so wants to retain it.

Eesti 200 vice-chair and Tallinn Deputy Mayor Aleksei Jašin said scrapping kindergarten fees would "damage the position of private kindergartens and daycare providers, and for that reason we have made it clear from the beginning that Eesti 200 does not support the elimination of the fee or this populist, pre-election game."

In Tartu, Reform differs from the Tallinn and headquarters line on kindergarten fees. Urmas Klaas, Reform's mayor there, said that the fee is needed for renovation work and to boost kindergarten teachers' wages.

"In order to maintain and develop a high-quality public service of this kind, both the city's contribution and parents' contribution to kindergartens are necessary," Klaas said.

In Rae municipality, just outside Tallinn, the current kindergarten fee stands at 15 percent of the minimum wage and rises in line with it.
Mart Võrklaev (Reform), who sits on Rae municipal council, said there are no plans there to remove the fee either.

"Our focus is rather on having beautiful and well-maintained kindergartens, having motivated teachers and enough of them, and being able to offer them a decent salary and ensure very good service for our children and parents," he said.

Ultimately Pillak said the issue was not a hill to die on and that if municipal governments don't wish to abolish kindergarten fees "We won't take offense. We are adults and we understand them, but I still hope that all coalition partners will agree that families with children need more support," Pillak said.

Tallinn City Council is due to discuss a supplementary budget of approximately €9 million, the sum announced as needed to cover the removal of the kindergarten fees in the capital.

The issue of abolishing kindergarten fees lay at the heart of a coalition rift in Tallinn through June and early July. While Reform briefly exited the city government, it rejoined it last week.

Local government elections in Estonia take place in October.

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