Estonia has seen significant improvements in PISA test scores since first participating in 2006. The country has one of the lowest rates of low-performing students in Europe and has reduced performance gaps between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds. In response to declining student populations, Estonia changed its school funding model and implemented policies like increased autonomy for schools and incentives for teachers to work in rural areas. The country also has widespread internet access and uses technology extensively in education.

1. Experience in using PISA
for improving the quality
and equity of education
Imbi Henno
Ministry of Education and Research
General Education Department
Chief expert, imbi.henno@hm.ee

2. Republic of Estonia
● Estonia became a European
Union member state in 2004.
● Area: 45,000 square km
● Population: 1,340 million
Largest ethnic groups: Estonians (69%), Russians
(26%), Ukrainians (2%), Belarussians (1%) and
Finns (1%).
http://brand.estonia.eu/en/photos-and-videos-for-free/videos?img=297

3. ● The Estonian Lifelong
Learning Strategy 2020
(adopted 2014) sees learning
as a lifestyle.
● Lifelong learning begins with
general education.
● General education is divided
to pre-school, basic and
upper-secondary education.
● Children who turn 7 years of
age by 1 October of the
current year are obliged to
attend school

4. National Curricula
● The national curriculum for basic and upper
secondary schools was updated in January 2011.
● The National Curricula implemented in all schools,
regardless of the schools legal status, levels of
education, the language of study.
● Every school develop their own school curricula.
● Parents can influence the school’s development
through school board.
● The school’s running costs will be covered by the
school manager. In most cases, this means local
governments.

5. General education in Estonia.
Some facts 2012/2013
 Primary schools (grades 1-6) 68
 Basic schools (grades 1-9) 250
 Upper secondary schools 214
(grades 1-12)
 Number of students: 134 975

6. A view from outside: 2000–2013
• OECD Review of Estonian Education Policy 1999-
2001
• IEA TIMSS 2003 Study
• PISA 2006, 2009, 2012 (OECD)
• OECD Review of Estonian Tertiary Education (Review
of Tertiary Education, 2006-2007)
• OECD Teachers’ Survey TALIS 2008, 2013
• CIVIC 2009 – (IEA International Civic and Citizenship
Education Study)
• PIAAC OECD Assessment of Adult Competencies

7. PISA
● PISA offers policy makers and educators a way to
identify the world’s most effective education
policies.
● Strong performers and successful reformers in
education share some key characteristics: a belief in
the potential of all their students, strong political
will, and the capacity of all stakeholders to make
sustained and concerted efforts towards
improvement (OECD, 2013).
● Estonia’s performance in PISA improved
significantly in reading and science since it first
participated in PISA in 2006: 14 score points
between PISA 2006 and PISA 2012.

8. PISA 2012 results
Math Reading Science
Rank
ing
Mean Country Mean Country Mean Country
1 613 Shanghai-China 570 Shanghai-China 580 Shanghai-China
2 573 Singapur 545 Hong Kong-
China
555 Hong Kong-China
3 561 Hong Kong-
China
542 Singapore 551 Singapore
4 560 Chinese Taipei 538 Japan 547 Japan
5 554 Korea 536 Korea 545 Finland
6 538 Macao-China 524 Finland 541 Estonia
7 536 Japan 523 Ireland 538 Korea
8 535 Liechtenstein 523 Chinese Taipei 528 Viet Nam
9 531 Switzerland 523 Kanada 526 Poland
10 523 Netherlands 518 Poland 525 Canada
11 521 Estonia 516 Estonia 525 Liechtenstein
12 519 Finland 516 Liechtenstein 524 Germany

9. Reducing the number of low achievement
● We have the lowest level of low-performers in
Europe in reading math, science.
● Between 2009 and 2012, Estonia even reduced low
performers and increased top performers in science
simultaneously.
● The benchmark adopted by the European Council
aims to reduce low achievers to below 15% by 2020.
● In OECD in 2012, an average 23 % of students were
low achievers in mathematics. Only Estonia, Finland
and Liechtenstein have already achieved the
benchmark.

10. The excellence through the equity
● Estonia has performed above the OECD mean
performance in all studies and students tend to
perform well regardless of their own background or
the school they attend.
● Considerable low between-school variation has been
found only in three countries: in Finland, Estonia,
Iceland.
● In Estonia the student’s home socio-economic
background has less impact on performance than it
does in other countries.

11. Change in the number of students by school
levels and projection for 1995–2014, prognosis
for 2017
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Upper Secondary
School
The number of children is decreasing significantly.

12. Estonia’s recent educational policies
● A significant demographic shift in Estonia’s population
resulted in a 25% reduction in the number of students in
general education between 2004 and 2012.
● In response to the changing student population, the
government changed school funding model.
● Competency standards for teachers and a development
plan for the teacher-training system have formulated.
● To encourage newly qualified teachers to teach in small
towns and rural areas, new teachers are offered an
allowance of more than 12 750 EUR during the first
three years of teaching.

13. School’s autonomy
● The PISA studies have shown, that in countries
where schools have greater autonomy over
what is taught and how students are assessed,
students tend to perform better.
● In Estonia the schools have the responsibility
to define and elaborate their curricula and
assessments.
● The schools are free to choice mathematics
textbooks.

14. ● Estonia is one of the most advanced e-societies in the
world. WiFi covers all country.
● „E-stonia" is the term commonly used to describe
Estonia – we have E-government, E-elections,
Electronic ID card
● E-services in education – e-School, University via
internet
● Estonia has become became E-stonia with the help of
a government-backed technology investment body
(called the Tiger Leap Programme). All Estonian
schools were online by the late 1990s.

15. ICT education
● Since 1994, Estonia, through the Tiger Leap
Foundation, has been promoting ICT use at all levels
of education.
● In primary and secondary schools ICT is taught as a
cross-curriculum topic, and in secondary schools ICT
is included within technology as a subject, and also
taught as a separate subject.
● Both students and teachers at secondary level are
expected to use ICT in all subjects both in class and
for complementary activities.

16. Computer-Based Math
● „I hate maths”– This problem is not unique to
Estonia.
● Conrad Wolfram has developed a programme called
Computer- Based Math, which aims to reset the
subject matter of maths beyond hand-calculating to
wider problem-solving, using modern computing.
● Estonia is the first country in the world to implement
this programme.
● The materials are tested in 31 basic and secondary
schools with 2000 students all over Estonia in spring
2014.

17. Thank for attention