From May 22 to 26, 2023, the participants of the MultiEd project were in Estonia on a study visit “Estonia as Education Nation” and got acquainted with the peculiarities of the Estonian education system, which demonstrates high results in international ratings of the quality of education, and visited educational institutions in Narva, Tartu and Tallinn.
At the Narva College of the University of Tartu representatives of partner universities from different regions of Ukraine studied the implementation of the language policy in Estonia at various educational levels, including preschool, secondary and higher education. Narva College is a center of multilingual education in Estonia, in which the social demand for mastery of state and foreign languages is the main factor in the formation of language policy in education.
During the visit to the preschool education institution lectures from partner universities learned the features and advantages of the language immersion method for children aged 3 to 6 years and had the opportunity to visit the classes of preschoolers and observe how they learn Estonian and foreign languages.
The participants of the study visit spent a productive and eventful day in Narva, studying the experience of the country whose students took the top places in the rating according to the test results of the International Program for the Assessment of Educational Achievements according to the international program for assessing the quality of the education system PISA.
The final stage of the study visit was a three-day stay in Tallinn. The program of the visit included meetings with the project manager of Education and Youth Board of Estonia Kai Koort, who explained in detail the structure of the national education system; with representatives of SPEAKTX (educational technologies to improve speech) and Triumf Health (interactive games to improve children’s health and well-being); a visit to the Estonian Academy of Internal Affairs in order to study the experience of the organization and presentation of Ukrainian universities; a conversation with the head of the House of the Estonian Language regarding the role of the Integration Foundation in supporting the national language in Estonia; attending the lecture by a well-known researcher Peeter Mehisto “Lessons from Estonia’s Education Success story: Exploring Equity and High Performance through PISA”; meeting the head of the LIFT99 Hub, who presented Estonia as a nation of numerous successful start-ups; excursion to the open-air ethnographic museum to learn about national traditions and lifestyle.
