International School of Tallinn opens doors in newly completed Education Quarter in Ülemiste City

  • 2025-01-30

Wednesday saw the opening of a school and community building in the newly completed Educational Quarter in the Ülemiste City business campus, which will be home to International School of Tallinn – the largest private school of its kind in Estonia. The complex has been named after Hilda Taba, one of the most renowned curriculum theorists and reformers of the 20th century.

“Smart cities make for, and are made by, smart people,” remarked Kadi Pärnits, the chairman of the board of Ülemiste City developer Mainor AS. “Supportive, people-friendly environments hone local talent to become the absolute best they can be, and that’s what this school and community building will do. It’s the first we’ve opened here in the business campus, and is right at the very heart of it, underscoring the key role that both education and community play in Ülemiste City.”

Pärnits says that private companies rarely build new schools. “It requires a certain vision and a strong foundation,” she added. “The Mainor Group was the first public limited company established in Estonia after we regained our independence, and education has been at the core of what we do for more than 30 years now. That’s something we’re immensely proud of. Any school that’s being developed has to offer something substantial, and that’s what the International School of Tallinn does: its International Baccalaureate (IB) is accredited around the world, and is an important service for global talent and businesses. It also contributes to the Estonian economy. Our vision is for us to become an expert in IB education and an ambassador for Estonia as a smart economy thanks to the foreign talent studying here.”

Founded in 2017, Tallinn International School is the largest private IB school in Estonia. In addition to pre-school, primary and secondary education, it offers a range of services to the Ülemiste City community: international childcare and kindergarten services, hobby groups and a day care centre.

The school’s director, Olavi Otepalu, says the school is an internationally recognised provider of IB education in English, with around 300 students of more than 60 different nationalities. “It primarily caters to the children of diplomats, entrepreneurs, senior managers, leading specialists and the expat community in Estonia whose lives and educational paths take them to different countries,” he explained. “Everyone who runs a school dreams of having a spacious new building like this, with all the mod cons it offers for learning, since it won’t only attract students, but also good teachers.”

Ursel Velve, the chairman of the management board of Mainor Ülemiste, urges property developers to consider developing complexes like the Ülemiste Educational Quarter and its community centre. “Focusing on commercial real estate alone won’t bring us any closer to a 24/7, five-minute city,” she noted. “Providing a wide range of services and opportunities enriches the local value system as a whole. Community activities like sport and hobbies support the physical, mental and social health and well-being of talented people, and are vital to the health of workers doing desk jobs. New facilities and growing green space are making the business park even more people-friendly.”

Anyone can use the sports and gymnastics hall in the new community centre, whether it be for sport or as an event venue.

The contractor responsible for the first phase of the school and community building was NOBE. With a gross area of around 6000 square metres, the complex’s construction costs ran to approx. 11.5 million euros. The Ülemiste Educational Quarter was designed by 3+1 Arhitektid, with outdoor spaces by landscape architects from TajuRuum. The project was financed by OP Corporate Bank. Help in modernising the school was provided by researchers from the University of Tartu’s Move Lab, led by Professor Merike Kull, along with students from the university, who submitted well-argued proposals for improvements to the school’s interior architecture and design.

Like all of the buildings in Ülemiste City, the Education Quarter and community centre symbolically bear the name of the renowned 20th-century Estonian curriculum theorist and education philosopher Hilda Taba, whose work outside of her homeland had a profound impact on the field.

Tallinn International School is owned by the Mainor Group, which among other things has been providing high-quality education since 1992, when it launched the Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences.

Ülemiste City is Estonia’s biggest developer of commercial property, with a market share of 15%. The 30 hectares of the business park are home to 185,000 square metres of leasable office space. In terms of labour tax revenue, Ülemiste City is Estonia’s third largest economic centre after Tallinn and Tartu, and is constantly growing: nearly 18,000 people lived, worked or studied in the business park in 2023. The total turnover of the businesses represented in Ülemiste City in 2023 was close to 2.5 billion euros, with exports valued at 1.2 billion euros. The impact of the business park on the Estonian economy has rapidly and significantly grown. Foreigners make up 12% of the workforce of the companies operating in Ülemiste City.