Estonia: School Governance in Estonia – Turnaround from Order-Oriented to Inclusive and Evidence-Based Governance

Abstract

This chapter provides a clear overview of how the country started with the order-oriented school governance culture typical of the Soviet period, and after making difficult decisions and choices turned toward a modern inclusive and evidence-based governance education system. The state provided broad autonomy to schools and heads to make decisions in the content of the education they provide through the learning environment and administration system. The Lehrplan school approach was changed to a curriculum-based approach and the teachers had to start selecting the learning material and content for themselves. School development was linked to institutional self-evaluation procedures and materials.

The decentralisation and democratisation of the school system in society led to evidence-based decision-making, but this shift required effective tools. Using external evaluations and several other tools for assessing and comparing schools, the state now provides input for school level decision-making and designing strategic development programmes. Municipalities as the owners of the schools are involved in school governance via different smart administrative bodies to achieve the targets of the national strategy “Estonian Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020”.

Principles that worked well in profit-oriented organisations were taken into use in schools (e.g. possibility to choose personnel and negotiate working conditions, evaluate procedures in the institution, etc.), granting heads with a great opportunity to build up their own unique school culture. Satisfaction studies carried out among students, teachers and parents make those stakeholders part of the decision-making body and offers the school the option of building up the culture of a learning organisation.