DEVELOPMENT
The pdf-version - Eesti Koostöö Kogu
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Figure 1.3.10<br />
Estonia’s place in the Global Competitiveness Index’s (GCI<br />
2012) indicator of educational competitiveness<br />
Top level Estonia Average<br />
Training of<br />
workers<br />
Availability of<br />
training services<br />
Conformity of education<br />
to the economy<br />
7<br />
6<br />
5<br />
4<br />
3<br />
2<br />
1<br />
Access to the Internet<br />
in the schools<br />
Both Vertical Horizontal<br />
United Kingdom<br />
Estonia<br />
Spain<br />
Netherlands<br />
Italy<br />
France<br />
Germany<br />
Norway<br />
Austria<br />
Czech Republic<br />
Finland<br />
Quality of the<br />
MS teaching<br />
Level of the<br />
schools of<br />
business and<br />
management<br />
*MS – quality of the mathematics and natural sciences teaching<br />
On a scale of 1 to 7, in which 1 is the lowest and 7 is the highest;<br />
expert assessments<br />
Figure 1.3.11<br />
Vertical and horizontal incompatibility between the<br />
labour market and education, % of university graduates<br />
with up to 5 years of work experience, 2005.<br />
Percentage 0 10 20 30 40 50<br />
Source: European Commission, 2011.<br />
Sweden, more than 60% of the teachers believed this<br />
to true, and in Italy, even 70% (European Commission<br />
2011). A third view about creativity and entrepreneurship<br />
in today’s education system is provided by the Eurobarometer<br />
public opinion poll. Half of the respondents from<br />
the EU states found that school had help to develop their<br />
attitudes that promote entrepreneurship and initiative;<br />
a somewhat smaller percentage (41%) agreed that they<br />
have received the necessary knowledge and skills from<br />
school to start a business. The Estonian respondents are<br />
at the European average in regard to their attitudes, but<br />
they are more critical than the average about the knowledge<br />
that have acquired in school for running a business<br />
(see Figure 1.3.12). When making a global comparison,<br />
it is worth noting that the people in the countries with<br />
developing economies (China, Turkey) gave a considerably<br />
higher assessment to the contribution of schools to<br />
the development of business-related knowledge and skills<br />
than European or the respondents in the old leading<br />
countries of the world (European Commission 2012b).<br />
1.3.5<br />
In conclusion<br />
Through the years, education has become an increasingly<br />
influential instrument for the assessment of human<br />
development. It is included in all the main composite<br />
indices, and ever new and more complicated dimensions<br />
have been added. Two factors are behind the growth of<br />
complexity. Firstly, the basic quantitative educational<br />
indicators (such as enrolment in education) have reached<br />
the level of saturation in the OECD states and the differences<br />
between countries are too small to provide any<br />
useful explanations. Secondly, from the viewpoint of<br />
the international organisations, education has greater<br />
instrumental than normative value. Therefore, a greater<br />
attempt is being made to link the indicators related to<br />
education to economic development or the social cohesion<br />
of the society.<br />
The measurement of educational quality has a relatively<br />
short history, and therefore, one large and dominant<br />
index has yet to develop. Instead, there are many indices<br />
and rankings, and they are constructed using various<br />
types of data – national statistics, tests with large samples<br />
(PISA), public opinion polls with smaller samples (Legatum<br />
Prosperity Index, Gallup World Poll, Eurobarometer)<br />
and expert surveys (Global Competiveness Index ). This<br />
provides each country with the best opportunity for analysis<br />
based on its needs, but also places high demands<br />
on the competency of the researchers to adequately and<br />
methodologically synthesise the various data. Among<br />
other things, attention should be paid to whether the<br />
international indices work adequately for Estonia. For<br />
instance, some of the measures (ET2010 enrolment of<br />
female students in the sciences; Legatum Index) value the<br />
higher enrolment of women in education. However, for<br />
Estonia, the problem is not the deficit of women, but of<br />
men, in education. As a whole, Estonia’s membership in<br />
the IEA, EU and OECD has considerably enriched the<br />
evidential material, based on which the position and<br />
prospects of Estonian education can be analysed.<br />
Assessing Estonia’s place in the rankings of the<br />
international education indices, for the most part, there<br />
is reason to be positive. In most of the composite indices<br />
(e.g. the UN Human Development Index, the OECD<br />
Better Life Index, and the World Economic Forum’s<br />
Global Competitiveness Index) a high score in education<br />
increases Estonia’s rating as a whole. Estonian education<br />
is also uniformly good, differences between schools<br />
are small and the number of low-achieving students is<br />
marginal. The phenomenon of a “strong average” can be<br />
considered to be Estonia’s distinctive feature. This means<br />
that the general performance level is good and there are<br />
few very low-performing students, but also few top-performing<br />
children. Additional research is required to<br />
determine how this educational pattern affects economic<br />
perspectives.<br />
38<br />
Estonian Human Development Report 2012/2013