The ministry will also be replacing the team that was responsible for the examination information system (EIS), Kallas told ERR in a short interview which follows.

Approximately 4,000, or 27 percent of the total of basic school leavers in Estonia, were left disappointed during Saturday's tests. Who should be feeling sheepish about this state of affairs?

In this respect, the Ministry of Education is to blame. Clearly, there had been mistakes in our work processes, where one party did not inform the other about the exam taking place, and the other party did not conduct a stress test [into the system].

Were you personally not aware that nearly 4,000 children in Tallinn and Harju County were taking the test?

No, I personally was not aware of personally, but the minister does not need to be. I found out on the Saturday. At that point in time, when the test had ceased to function, was when I was informed. Nonetheless, the fact that our department which manages schools and the tech department did not communicate sufficiently with each other to ensure that such a risk did not materialize is clearly our responsibility.

An entire workday went to naught on the Saturday, though. The teachers had come out to work. To whom should the bill be sent? To the Ministry of Education?

These are schools under the Ministry of Education's remit. We will bear the damages. But beyond that, it is very clear that we cannot use the exam information system for something it is not actually intended for. It is not designed for conducting these types of tests in full public view. We cannot do things this way. This was a clear teachable moment on how we can actually use this IT system.

I understand that on April 20 entrance exams for high schools in Ida-Viru County. Should examinees bring a slate and some chalk, or a laptop?

We made the decision today that these tests cannot be conducted via the EIS, since we have no guarantee that it will work in these cases, as it's not designed for that purpose.

This means the Ida- and Lääne-Viru County tests need to be conducted either on paper, or in another environment.

[Open-source learning management system] Moodle has been used before. We will be holding a final discussion with school principals tomorrow, on whether to carry it out on paper or via Moodle.

Has Estonia's e-school system failed?

No, it certainly has not. I heard "Aktuaalne kaamera" report it as if today's test exam failed and that the English language test exam failed, but that's not the case.

The test-run exams have actually all been successfully concluded. The previous two test runs proved highly successful. The current exam had a 15-minute period when the exam environment was working very slowly, indeed caused by the video mentioned by a student [in the AK segment] which caused the delays.

But this lasted for 15 minutes only, and after that, the children all completed the exam in time, without needing much of a time extension.

This is why we need these test-run exams, to see if the system is working and where the glitches are.

However, it is also clear that, as of today, were we to make a decision, we definitely could not conclude that we are ready for e-exams. We are not ready for that right now.

So initially, there won't be any personnel-related orders or statements coming from your office?

We are replacing the EIS team. That decision has been made, and some of those people were supposed to have left by the end of next week anyway, so clearly, a team change was needed.

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