Ansip: State Should Not Be Student Nanny
In a rebuttal to critics of the performance-based educational reform, Prime Minister Andrus Ansip says the state should not be expected to pay for students' food and clothing, as education is in some respects a personal investment.
"Studying will be free for students who make good progress," maintained Ansip in Parliament today.
"That does not mean that all aspects of a person's upkeep, such as food and clothing should be paid for by the state - that is, by anonymous taxpayers," he added.
"Education should be seen among other things as a person's investment into his or her future and it is completely clear that great effort is expended everywhere in the world to obtain a good education," said Ansip.
He argued there was no great difference between Nordic welfare states and those where not many state scholarships are offered.
Ansip said that university students in Sweden work more than they do in Estonia, and said that state-paid tuition alone should already be viewed as a generous benefit.
Kristopher Rikken