Even before ninth graders began taking the mandatory Estonian language exam, teachers were already aware that the test contained errors.

"Those definitely affected students with lower stress tolerance — those who were very anxious before the exam — because they couldn't understand what kind of error it was supposed to be. The mistakes weren't clearly identified, so they had to start looking for them. Maybe they spent more time searching for the error than actually focusing on the task," said Mari-Liis Sults, principal of Tallinn Art High School.

There were also issues with the mathematics, history and chemistry exams. According to Sults, an even bigger problem than the flawed questions was the fact that grading training took place only after the exams.

"For example, I have very good and experienced math teachers and they didn't need to change anything after the training session. But several others did. One task required presenting frequencies in a table and everyone assumed it had to be in table format. But students think differently — maybe someone listed them or lined them up visually. If they wrote out the frequencies in any form and calculated based on that, it shouldn't be marked wrong just because it wasn't a table," Sults explained.

The Education and Youth Board (Harno), the agency responsible for organizing the exams, stated in a written response that the human errors found in the exams were mainly due to the accelerated schedule. However, Harno did not explain why the flawed tasks were distributed in the first place.

According to Ruth Pikkorainen, head of Kiili School, the decision to move the exams earlier caused exactly what the change was supposed to avoid.

"That is, student stress — which was supposed to be reduced. In reality, the stress level during this year's exam period was significantly higher than usual, both for students and teachers," Pikkorainen said.

In larger schools, it is also not feasible to adjust the curriculum so that certain subjects are taught more intensively before the exams. Doing so would disrupt the entire school timetable because teachers often work across multiple grade levels.

The Ministry of Education does not agree with the principals' criticism and sees no need to change the exam schedule. Instead, they attribute the issue to schools' inability to adapt to the new structure.

"We also provided guidelines to schools for how to organize spring-term teaching — integrating generalizations, metacognition, support for students applying to high schools, reflecting on what went well or poorly in the final exams. That includes preparing for interviews and supporting students who have a less positive experience," said Ülle Matsin, head of general education policy at the Ministry of Education.

According to the head of Kiili School, the idea is good in theory but difficult to implement — because once the exams are over and grades are finalized, students no longer feel motivated to return to school.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook, Bluesky and X and never miss an update!