A plan that first started circulating in the 2010s — that all upper secondary (high school) education should be under state control — took on a more concrete form in 2021 when the government approved the Education Strategy 2021–2035. The document stated that the division of responsibility at the secondary education level must be clarified and that more responsibility should be given to the state.

A 2022 audit published by the National Audit Office of Estonia also clearly stated that "the Ministry of Education and Research is of the view that assigning responsibility for secondary education to the central government is important both for the development of the upper secondary school network and for the rest of the education system."

The ministry is now preparing the initial draft of the corresponding legislative amendment.

Current law governing basic schools and upper secondary schools allows both the state and local governments to operate upper secondary schools. As a result, municipalities where the number of students is steadily declining are still allowed to provide secondary education. The backbone of the proposed legislative changes is that, by 2035, the right to operate upper secondary schools would be transferred to the state, while local governments would remain responsible for providing basic education, Henry Kattago, deputy secretary general of the Ministry of Education and Research, told ERR.

He added that the changes are currently being refined so that the first pilot projects can be launched with municipalities to test an administrative contract model.

Negotiations are underway with Põltsamaa Municipality and Pärnu. Põltsamaa has said it is ready to take part in the pilot. Under the administrative contract model, the high school would formally remain under the control of the city or municipality, but an agreement would be signed with the state under which the latter would set the criteria the school must meet, Kattago said.

"It would essentially be similar to a state high school, offering a comparable quality of education and learning environment. There would be qualified teachers and so on," he said.

Administrative contracts will be used because the ministry concluded while preparing the proposal that it would not make sense to nationalize every municipal high school. Instead, for schools that are viable — meaning they have a sufficient number of students and teachers, as well as suitable buildings — it would be more practical to conclude an administrative contract, Kattago said.

Talks only beginning in Tallinn

If secondary education is indeed transferred to the state by 2035, it will naturally also affect Tallinn, the country's largest municipality, where student shortage is not a problem. The Ministry of Education and Research has preliminary plans in place and meetings are currently taking place with the city government to understand its projections for the future and what steps will be needed, Kattago said.

The city government's action program states that by the end of this year, an agreement should be reached with the ministry on a plan for taking over upper secondary education. However, Kaarel Rundu, head of the Tallinn Education Department, told ERR that he is not yet prepared to say that all of the details will be settled by the end of the year.

"The goal is certainly to find common ground, but all of these details are still at a very early stage and need to be negotiated. We have exchanged information with the ministry regarding Tallinn's demographics so that we have a shared understanding of what the future needs of Tallinn's educational institutions will be," Rundu said.

"There are various nuances that concern not only upper secondary education, but also adult education and, to some extent, vocational education. These are all issues that are still unresolved," he added.

The ministry's goal is for a significantly larger share of basic school graduates in Tallinn to choose secondary education combined with vocational training, in other words vocational education. "So that they will later be competitive in the labor market and in society," Kattago said.

According to Rundu, the city is aware of the state's goal of making vocational education more popular and has no problem with that. However, Tallinn is concerned about the future and career prospects of young people with special educational needs.

"One issue that is certainly important to address in the context of reorganizing vocational education is how to offer them better prospects. Tallinn has opened programs at its applied college specifically intended for young people with special educational needs, but there is definitely a need for more such study places in Tallinn," he said.

The plan would slash number of high schools in the capital

According to the ministry, Tallinn currently has 42 city-run high schools. The ministry believes that, in the long term, Tallinn's high school network will inevitably have to be consolidated, meaning the capital will certainly not have that many upper secondary schools in the future.

"It must be taken into account that nearly 12,000 upper secondary students study in Tallinn today, which is 40 percent of all upper secondary students in Estonia, so there are naturally many students in Tallinn. But if you look at those schools, there are also smaller ones, for example schools with just 72 upper secondary students. The largest has a little more than 400 students, while state high schools have 1,080 students. In other words, the optimal size has not been reached among Tallinn's municipal upper secondary schools," Kattago said.

Tallinn currently has three state high schools and a fourth is expected to open in Lasnamäe in a couple of years. In the future, there could be a few more, while the number of city-run high schools would be significantly smaller, according to the ministry.

"We believe, based on our forecasts, that the optimal number for Tallinn would be seven state high schools, plus the upper secondary schools in Harju County — there are four of those — as well as vocational colleges. And perhaps around 10 specialized upper secondary schools, such as the Tallinn French Lyceum or similar schools. Then demand should be met," Kattago said.

Rundu called that line of thinking speculative and said it should not be forgotten that some high schools in Tallinn operate under international agreements. In addition, Tallinn has schools with very long traditions and distinct educational profiles.

"We have not yet arrived at such figures ourselves. But we are certainly taking the city's demographics into account. I would rather not comment further on those numbers because it is a somewhat speculative approach and those figures have not yet been presented to us," he said.

Estonia has dozens of high schools with fewer than 100 students

Until the law is amended, local governments retain the right to continue operating upper secondary school divisions with small student numbers. And there are quite a few such schools: while there are 153 upper secondary schools in Estonia this academic year, 99 of them municipal, 61 have fewer than 100 students.

"We have urged municipalities that if the number of upper secondary students has been below 100 for a longer period of time, they should seriously consider what options there are for reorganizing the school network or cooperating with the state so that graduates of local basic schools can continue to be offered quality secondary education in the future," Kattago said.

An audit by the National Audit Office of Estonia several years ago also found that efforts to streamline the school network — in other words, to close upper secondary divisions with small numbers of students — have not progressed at the planned pace.

"The number of upper secondary schools in Estonia has declined, but not to the extent expected /.../ An interim goal had been to reduce the number of schools offering full-time general secondary education from 202 to about 100 by 2020. In the 2020/2021 academic year, 158 schools were operating," the audit office said.

The state cannot close local upper secondary schools itself; that authority still rests solely with municipalities and cities, Kattago said.

"There are municipalities that have had the courage to make decisions about their school network — they have looked at the numbers and forecasts and realistically assessed their capabilities. And of course there are also those that are still weighing and analyzing their options and are still discussing them with local communities. In the end, it all depends on political will and how municipal councils decide. From the state's perspective, it is not possible to directly force anyone to reorganize a municipal school network," he said.

Rundu said Tallinn's goal is to maintain a diverse school network in the capital even after 2035 and that is why the city does not support the ministry's view that all municipalities should effectively adopt the state upper secondary school model wholesale through administrative contracts.

"We do not share that vision in that form. Tallinn's school network is highly diverse. State upper secondary schools themselves also have very distinct profiles and we want to preserve that diverse educational network. That will certainly be one of the starting points in negotiations with the ministry," he said.

Because it will still take time for the bill to be completed, Kattago said it will likely be left to a future composition of the Riigikogu to consider, assuming the next government has the political consensus needed to move forward with the issue and submit the legislative amendments to parliament.

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