"I have discussed this situation with Priit Sauk, head of the Transport Administration, and my directive to him was that we must sit down as soon as possible with the board of the Driving Schools Association to understand where the constructive elements of the criticism lie and to find solutions to the issues that have emerged," Svet told ERR.

According to Svet, the most important priority in the current situation is to restore a constructive and trusting relationship between the Driving Schools Association and the Transport Administration.

"We absolutely need to sit down with the Driving Schools Association, look at the data and understand where this high failure rate in the exams is coming from. Only then can we determine which of these problems are objective and which are subjective. I expect the dialogue to take place primarily face-to-face, after which we should see concrete proposals," Svet said.

The Estonian Driving Schools Association claims that in September, the Transport Administration introduced poor-quality exam questions, which caused exam results to drop to six to seven times below the usual level. According to the association, responsible officials should step down due to the resulting chaos.

The association argues that the phrasing of the questions in the national theory exam is confusing, the new diagrams make answering more difficult and some questions have been incorrectly entered into the system (for example, where the answer repeats the question).

Driving schools also point out that a pass rate of around 10 percent is neither typical nor acceptable.

In response, the Transport Administration maintains that the traffic test is correct and complies with legal regulations.

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