In a letter addressed to the Ministry of Education and Research, Olavi Otepalu, director of the International School of Tallinn (IST), wrote that Tallinn European School (TES) fees have "for years" been lower than they should be.

Otepalu wrote that financing practices at all international schools operating in Estonia are opaque and unequal, a situation which, he says, distorts significantly the effective functioning of international school education.

TES' homepage reveals fees of €3,993 per academic year for kindergarten-age children, rising to €4,664 per year for grades one to five, and €5,709 per academic year for pupils in grades six to 12. Tuition fees at TES reportedly rose by 10 percent last year.

IST's fees by comparison are €7,500 per academic year for kindergarteners, and between €9,000 and €9,700 in respect of pupils in grades one to 12.

Established in 2013 by the education ministry, TES, located in the Kelmiküla neighborhood of central Tallinn, is the only accredited European School in Estonia and the Baltic states.

Managed by the Sihtasutus Euroopa Kool (European School Foundation), TES follows the European Schools' curriculum, with the European Baccalaureate presented to students upon graduation. In addition to English, the curriculum is also provided in French, and some classes this year are also taught in Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Spanish and Romanian, as well as in Estonian.

IST is situated in the Ülemiste district of Tallinn and is operated by Tallinn International School OÜ, a subsidiary of limited company Mainor, the developer responsible for the Ülemiste City development, and whose majority owner is Guido Pärnits.

In addition to the too-low tuition fees, Otepalu claimed in his letter that TES' scope and activities have expanded beyond the school's original mandate, and to "unreasonable and disproportionately large dimensions."

Otepalu wrote, using an equivalent European school in Helsinki as a basis, that TES-enrolled pupils should number around 100.

TES director Ian Karell put the number of students currently at the school at 500.

Otepalu also stated that TES is costlier to maintain due to its more specific curriculum, in part because European schools are primarily intended for the children of EU institutions' and agencies' employees, and so are not aimed at or suitable for satisfying the broad-based demand seen in international general education, he said.

The school's expansion plans, according to publicly available information, are "cynical," he added, arguing that there is no reason why the Estonian taxpayer should compensate for additional funding for the education of "foreigners."

The current TES tuition fees (see above) only cover around third of the school's budget, Otepalu wrote, arguing that the proportion should be more like two-thirds.

Ministry spokesperson: TES funding model identical to that of other private schools

The education ministry's state high schools foundation coordinator, Triin Käpp, said that TES enlargement had been "unpredictable," adding that there however no further plans for expansion. "We cannot invest further to boost the infrastructure. In this sense, the ceiling has been reached," Käpp told ERR.

While TES was founded by the Estonian state, unlike IST, it is still run based on the principles of a private school, she noted.

"The state provides all private schools with the funding for teachers' wages on an equal basis. Granted, TES is also state-founded, but it uses exactly the same basic funding model. So in this sense, I don't see that this question has been addressed in the right place," she went on.

Tuition fees were last hiked in 2023 and can be raised every other year, she added, noting that a decision on this ultimately lies within the competence of the European School Foundation's supervisory board.

Since the ministry received Otepalu's letter only recently, it is too early to comment further, Käpp told ERR.

Olavi Otepalu in his letter called for the state to take the initiative to hike TES fees decisively, adding that if fees at private schools more broadly are raised by nearly 10 percent per year, per the limit set for private schools, tuition fees would at least double in the next decade.

This would also bring savings of at least one million euros per year in the case of TES, he wrote. Current fees should in any case be double 2013's level, Otepalu added, noting the ministry at the time stated this. However, this has not happened.

A total of five people sit on the European School Foundation's supervisory board: Representatives of the education ministry, the finance ministry and the economic affairs ministry, as well as the head of the Tallinn Board of Education (Tallinna haridusamet) and the human resources manager of the Tallinn-based EU IT agency.

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