A deepening of the qualification gap between rural and urban school teachers would inevitably mean great educational stratification. “Eventually, we may reach a situation where, even if there is a local school, parents walk past the school near their home and take their children to a school that offers a good education, even if it is further away,” Kindsiko explained.
From the point of view of the future of Estonian rural schools, the best scenario is community teachers, where teachers come from the local community. Thanks to the availability of teacher training close to home or cycling and distance learning, future teachers are not forced to move to Tallinn or Tartu. This means that rural areas do not lose young teachers to centers where students of age to start families often stay. In this scenario, schools are located in energy-efficient community buildings, where numerous services needed by the community are located. For example, the library located in the community house serves both schoolchildren and the elderly, the seminar and culture halls host village festivals and children’s graduation ceremonies, but the premises can also be rented to ensure that the community house community can earn additional income.
“An important question is whether all seven school buildings of a local government should have a separate science class, a chemistry laboratory, a robotics class, etc. In most cases, they are also very modestly equipped. If each community building was specialized, cooperation between schools would happen,” Kindsiko said.
However, the teacher succession scenarios developed within the Development Observatory’s research directorate “The Future of Teacher Succession” are not solutions to current problems, but aim to understand what will happen if one or the other trend worsens. “If a scenario seems scary or even repugnant, it’s worth thinking about how to avoid it,” Kindsiko emphasized.
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2024-01-07 10:14:00
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