In September, the Ministry of Education received a letter from a parent whose child had not been accepted to Lähte High School.

After reviewing the case, the ministry found that although the school's admission rules allow the admissions committee to offer a place to a candidate without an entrance interview if their academic results are outstanding — for example, if they have excelled in academic competitions — Lähte High School had admitted a large number of students through direct offers and did not require them to take the entrance test.

Nor were their basic school final exam results considered in the same way as for other applicants.

"In doing so, the school did not follow the procedure approved by the principal," the ministry's supervision adviser, Katrin Ohakas, wrote to the school.

She also noted that admission to upper secondary school is an important milestone for students and all decisions affecting it — such as making a large number of direct offers, which reduced other candidates' opportunities — must, by law, be made in writing and clearly state the legal grounds.

In the case of Lähte High School, Ohakas said, there was no evidence that the committee making the direct offers had a fixed membership or that its decisions had been formally documented.

"I would like to draw your attention to the need to amend the admission procedure and ensure the legality and transparency of upper secondary admissions," Ohakas said. "It is especially important to clearly and precisely regulate how the school handles students who receive direct offers. Secondly, it is necessary to consider how candidates are informed of their ranking position."

Ohakas added that the school must also establish clear criteria for direct offers — that is, define what constitutes outstanding academic results and which achievements in competitions qualify — and then adhere strictly to those standards.

"At present, the list of students who received direct offers came from other school principals or even teachers and the criteria were not set," Ohakas said. "By acting this way, candidates were placed in an unequal position and lacked information on how many direct offers were made and how many places were actually available for regular applicants."

For this reason, the ministry wants Lähte High School to inform them how it plans to conduct the admission process lawfully next spring.

Rural school must make efforts to attract students

Lähte High School Principal Martin Pent told ERR that the school has made direct offers for the past two years and the practice was already in place for a year before he became head of the school.

"We asked the principals of nearby schools — purely on the basis of trust — for their assessment of which students might do well in upper secondary studies and would make good candidates. Based on that information alone, we sent out invitations. We did the same in the spring of 2025, until we learned that some things needed to be corrected," he explained.

According to Pent, when the school first experimented with this kind of admissions process, there was a lot of internal skepticism and some staff thought sending personalized invitations was pointless. However, experience showed that individual outreach was effective: among those who received invitations, interest in attending the school was relatively high. For that reason, the same approach was used again this spring.

The principal added that since Lähte High School is not a city school but is located about ten kilometers from Tartu, this unusual admission method also served as a way to raise the school's visibility and make students aware that it even exists.

"City schools inevitably attract most upper secondary students, so this seemed like one way we could also draw motivated students to our school," Pent said.

For applicants who did not receive direct offers, the selection process is based on equal criteria, Pent emphasized. The school considers the results of basic school final exams, the average grade on the diploma — which must be higher than 3.5 — and, since last year, a 45-minute reasoning test that assesses analytical ability, graph reading and other core skills.

Following the ministry's criticism, the school has amended its admissions procedure to address the legal concerns.

Pent noted that the ministry's main objection was that the school had not clearly or objectively defined who would receive invitations and had instead relied simply on other schools' recommendations. "Now, more specific criteria have been set out in the admission rules," he said.

Although Lähte High School has not yet received feedback from the ministry on these changes, Pent said the school intends to request it and believes that the issues have been resolved.

"It may seem like a very simple thing — that we're just identifying potential students by name or based on our own objective criteria — but these past two years have shown that this approach often resonates with students and has a real impact. For that reason, I see no reason to abandon it after just two years," the principal said.

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