The number of schools to be granted funding from this support measure increased on year, as the number of six-grade schools has gone up following the closure of the third stage of basic education — i.e. 7th through 9th grades — in many schools.

Local governments were able to apply for additional state support for the operation of rural elementary schools. A combined nearly €2 million in support was granted to six-grade schools with an enrollment of 20-89 during the current school year. Last year, nearly €1.3 million was granted to 18 six-grade schools in 14 local governments.

"We rely on Statistics Estonia's Classification of Estonian administrative units and settlements (EHAK), which looks at population density," noted Kadi Serbak, an analyst at the ministry's State Schools and Assets Department. "Based on that, if there are over 89 students and the school is located in a city or town area, it does not qualify for support."

This time, 27 six-grade elementary schools or campuses across 18 local governments fulfilled the conditions for this support measure. The minimum support amount for each school was approximately €49,000. The largest grant was awarded to Põltsamaa Municipality, which received approximately €123,000 for Põltsamaa High School's Lustivere campus.

According to Serbak, there are two bases for the calculation of grant amounts. The first part covers support for support specialists and other expenses, and this sum is the same for every school — €49,320.

"The second element of this support is intended to cover the labor costs of class teachers, and the amount of this support depends on how many students are enrolled at the school, how many classes have been formed and also whether there are any split-grade classes or not," the ministry analyst explained.

"There's a calculation formula involved, based on how much the local government may fall short in class teacher labor costs, and then our support is meant to cover that shortfall," she added.

Elva Municipality received support for three schools, with grant amounts ranging from €51,000-121,000. Berit Ojaniit, director of the municipality's Education and Culture Department, emphasized that these support funds are vital for small schools.

"Since the number of students is small, it may not be a very motivating environment from a teacher's perspective," she admitted. "But if we can provide teachers with competitive salaries, that helps keep [these schools] going."

Ojaniit added that the support money they receive will be put toward teacher and support specialist salaries in the schools that were granted support — but also toward the schools' overall upkeep.

More schools qualify after dropping upper grades

At the ministry, Serbak confirmed that the main limitation for utilizing awarded support funding is that the money must be used for the specific school for which it was awarded.

"However, how exactly [a municipality] uses this support for a school has been left up to them to decide," she continued. "What I described earlier, the basis for the calculation of this support, does not directly limit how a local government can utilize the support."

Compared to last year, nearly ten more schools were granted small school support this year, and the total amount of support funding to be distributed is nearly twice as large.

"This growth has occurred because quite a few school system-related decisions were made last spring dropping the third stage [grades 7-9] from schools," the ministry representative noted. "As a result, the number of six-grade schools has gone up. In other words, these aren't newly established schools; they're the same schools, which previously operated as basic schools and are now six-grade schools."

Estonia's small school support is allocated to local municipalities for a period of one calendar year.

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