Mihkel Lees

The Estonian education system maintained its peculiarity during the Soviet occupation – teaching was in Estonian, the atmosphere in schools derived from progressive ideas and democracy, textbooks were by Estonian authors, and teaching arts, music, and foreign languages were given a great emphasis.

According to the latest research by Aasvee & Minossenko, less than 20 percent of Estonian children move as much as the World Health Organization advises, which is at least one hour a day. A major challenge is to find ways to increase children\'s physical activity.

There is a long history of schooling in Estonia, education is highly valued. As an IT-country, Estonia is working on better integration of IT into curricula. Our challenges are related to demographic changes, changes in school network and making teaching a more attractive profession.

Estonia has set itself the goal of making better use of digital opportunities in teaching and developing students’ digital competence - the ability to use digital technology in order to better cope with studying and working, communicating within communities and simply as citizens in a rapidly changing information society.

Estonia is about to undergo a work capacity reform which will establish a new system to support capacity for work. The aim of the changes is to shift the attitude towards people with reduced work capacity and help them find and keep jobs.