In the speech, made at the Education Ministry in Tartu, she said that Estonia's main problem in education is not one of language, but the drop-out rate in secondary schools.
Over 1,000 students stop their studies at secondary schools each year due to personal and family problems.
"They are deprived of any proper training that would help them to make ends meet," she said.
According to statistics from the Education Ministry, over 5 percent of 16-year-olds do not attend school. The reintroduction of state-funded boarding schools would be a solution, according to Rand.
Still, part of the education debate is focusing on the appropriateness of teaching Russian-speaking students attending Russian schools, with their subjects taught in their native language. Rand, from the Center Party, said the debate has been over-politicized.
As part of the new coalition agreement of the Reform Party and the Center Party, the new government will take measures to keep the state-funded Russian high schools working even after 2007, when most subjects in Russian schools have - until now - been slated to be taught in Estonian.
But the parties insist they will also strive to enhance the quality of Estonian language teaching in Russian schools.
Should Russian high schools have Estonian as their working language from 2007, Rand argued, the quality of education would suffer.
"Imagine a 50- or 60-year-old chemistry teacher trying to teach her subject in her poor Estonian. Kids would neither learn chemistry nor the Estonian language," she said.
There are 241 high schools that would be affected by the 2007 changes. Of those, 167 are Estonian, 63 are Russian and 11 have mixed teaching languages (Estonian and Russian).
Rand said she also supported free higher education, looking to Scandinavia as an example.
"In Finland, 60 percent of high school graduates receive free higher education. In Estonia, that number is only 30 percent," said Rand. "Taking into account the birth rate decline, we must be concerned about giving all young people the maximum education," she said.
The language issue in general began receiving greater attention in the Estonian media after the presidential elections. President Arnold Ruutel, the former leader of the People's Union, a left-wing party, is fluent in Russian, and even plans to have his next New Year speech broadcast in Estonian with Russian subtitles.
Ruutel made the promise while on a visit to the country's largely Russian-speaking northeastern region.
Tonis Lukas, the education minister in the previous right-wing government, said when leaving the post that the Center Party's push to keep education in Russian after 2007 was unnecessary and a politically-motivated promise.
Calling the move "senseless," Lukas said his team's objective had been to make all students equally competitive, especially in terms of language abilities, so that Russian students could enter any university in Estonia.
"Besides, Russian-language high schools are almost empty. It's difficult to maintain a good level of education there," he insisted.
Lukas described the education policy of Mart Laar's Cabinet as moderate, saying that in 2007 only Russian high schools would have been closed, leaving secondary, professional and private schools operating.
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