School reform needed to end waste

2 From wire reports, TALLINN

Estonian Education and Science Minister Jaak Aaviksoo presented on June 8 a plan on higher education reform, according to which excellent students will get a free education and the so-called “capitation fee” system in financing universities will disappear, reports Postimees. Aaviksoo presented his “thesis, not yet an approved law,” as he put it, at the Tallinn Technical University development conference.
This would change Estonian higher education in several important aspects, but two things will be most important. First, starting next year, the free studies principle would be valid for all students enrolling in universities in fields taught in the Estonian language if they collect the full 30 credit points per semester as required by the study program. Currently there are a pre-determined number of state-financed, or free, student places available in universities and the students who don’t qualify for those have to pay for their studies.
Second, Aaviksoo wants to abandon the capitation fee system, i.e. paying universities per number of students, and start allocating finances on the basis of performance contracts to be concluded between the ministry and the universities, which would take into consideration the responsibility of universities, quality and quantity indicators.
The minister has said that in the past four years, universities have “wasted” nearly 1.5 billion kroons (96.1 million euros) of money that taxpayers paid to get university graduates, but did not get these graduates.
One problem in the reform is that the need-based study grants system will only come into force in 2015, meaning that in the meantime, students who cannot attend all their classes to get full credits because they have to work to support themselves, will suffer. o