01 - Estonia - Historical overview
In the second half of the 16th century, a Jesuit College (1583) and an
Interpreter Seminary (1585) were established in Tartu. Under the
Swedish reign, a gymnasium school was opened in Tartu in 1630, which
was then reorganised as a university in 1632 (Academia Gustaviana,
Academia Dorpatensis, later Academia Gustava Carolina). The university
comprised four faculties (theology, medicine, law, and philosophy) and
moved to a number of towns. In 1710, the university was closed due to
the plague as a result of which only two teachers survived. The
university was reopened on 21 April 1802 when the German-language
Landesuniversität was denoted an Imperial University as it was financed
and managed by the Russian empire. The institution became a recognised
education and research centre of its time. In the period of
Russification in the Baltic provinces (since the 1880s), the autonomy
of the University of Tartu was radically curbed and the official
language of instruction was Russian.
The Tartu University as the
Estonian national university was officially opened on 1 December 1919.
Several other higher education institutions in the field of arts and
music were opened in the following years. Tallinn Technical University
was founded in 1936.
At the beginning of the Soviet occupation,
the operation of universities was reorganised according to the norms
valid in the Soviet Union. Higher education became a state monopoly.
The operation of all student and scientific societies was banned. In
November 1944, five universities were reopened in Soviet Estonia.
After
Estonia regained independence in 1991, the Republic of Estonia
Education Act was adopted in 1992 as the most important legal act in
the field of education. Higher education was reformed step by step by
adopting the Universities Act (1995), the Private Schools Act (1998)
and the Institutions of Professional Higher Education Act (1998). Thus,
higher education is offered besides universities also by institutions
of professional higher education. Starting from 1999, also some
vocational schools were given the right to offer professional higher
education. In 2000, the Higher Education Standard was adopted,
establishing general higher education requirements in Estonia and
becoming the basis document for issuing education licenses to
institutions that offer higher education and for accreditation of their
curricula. Institutions that offer higher education may be state
institutions, legal persons in public law or legal persons in private
law. Due to a liberal higher education politics, the number of private
higher education institutions grew very fast.
For the
application of the Bologna Declaration, signed by the European
Ministers of Education in 1999, in Estonia, a working group consisting
of the representatives of academic circles, employers and students was
formed under the leadership of the Minister of Education and Research.
The amendments to the valid legislation concurrent with the
implementation of the Declaration were authorised by the higher
education reform plan approved by the Government of the Republic on 12
June 2001. Following these agreed principles, all relevant acts
regulating higher education – the Universities Act, The Institutions of
Professional Higher Education Act and the Higher Education Standard
were amended in one year. Transfer from the thus far applying 4 + 2
study stages system to the new 3 + 2 system took place in the academic
year 2002/2003 after the amendment of the Universities Act and other
acts related to it by the Riigikogu (Parliament) in June 2002. At the
same time, the implementation of the uniform form of the Diploma
Supplement commenced. Several other topics mentioned in the Bologna
Declaration did not foresee profound amendments for their application
in Estonia as the practice of determining the volume of curricula on
the basis of a student’s study load had already begun at the beginning
of the 1990s, following the example of the Scandinavian countries. An
accreditation system based on the collegial assessment in which
external experts are engaged in order to guarantee the increase of
objectivity has been put to practice The state also supports the mobility of Estonian students and professors within the framework of European programmes.
For
the functioning of the principles of mutual recognition of diplomas and
qualifications have been made, which is, in turn, the prerequisite for
the application of free movement of people in the context of the
European Union. Estonia has passed the Recognition of Foreign
Professional Qualifications Act that came into effect on 1 January
2001. The issues of academic recognition are regulated by the Lisbon
Convention on the recognition in the European region of the
certificates of higher education and the certificates giving access to
higher education, which was ratified by the Parliament of the Republic
of Estonia on 1 April 1998. In 2006, conditions and procedures for
evaluation and academic acknowledgement of documents certifying
education acquired in a foreign country, and for usage of titles of
qualifications given in the education system of a foreign country were
additionally established with a decree of the Government of the
Republic of Estonia.
Eurydice - the information network on education in Europe
Date: 2009
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