05.09.24 NEWS ... Approximately 2,200 tons of pharmaceutical residues reach the Baltic Sea every year. A group of Estonian, Danish and Polish researchers are trying to stop the process and break down chemical traces before they reach the natural environment.

05.09.24 NEWS ... Finland saw one of its largest environmental crimes of recent years last month when a Stora Enso forestry machine destroyed thousands of endangered freshwater pearl mussels (Margaritifera margaritifera), after driving through their habitat, in a protected river zone.

04.09.24 NEWS ... In a project led by the Institute of Computer Science at the University of Tartu (TÜ), open-source language models will be trained to speak Estonian more fluently and better understand Estonian culture, in order to preserve and protect the Estonian language in the face of the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and create convenient applications for Estonians to use.

03.09.24 NEWS ... According to the supermother hypothesis, women who give birth to twins are generally stronger and more resilient than average. Estonian researchers have now found evidence supporting this hypothesis. Data on Estonian women from the 19th century confirm that after the age of 80, the mortality rate among mothers of twins was lower than that of other women. Additionally, women living in coastal areas and rural regions tended to have relatively longer lifespans.

03.09.24 NEWS ... A nature camera has caught the delightful moment a brown bear in an Estonian forest started munching on apples, agricultural weekly Maaleht reports.

02.09.24 NEWS ... One in three 7th- through 12th-grade math teachers in Estonia is aged 60 and over. In the next decade, nearly 600 new math teachers will be needed to replace retiring ones. Although two-thirds of those who have studied to become math teachers stay in the profession, the number of new generation teachers totals just half of what is needed, according to a Foresight Center report published late last week.

02.09.24 NEWS ... This Sunday, September 1, Metsküla School, an elementary school in Pärnu County's Lääneranna Municipality, officially began operations as a private school. For the past school year, the tiny school northwest of Pärnu had continued operating in an unofficial capacity after being shut down by the local government.

02.09.24 NEWS ... Estonia's new school year started on September 1, and with it the first stage of the transition to Estonian language reform and the end of the Russian language education system. Minister of Education Kristina Kallas (Eesti 200) discussed the "very stressful" process, the changes and future goals with ERR News.

02.09.24 NEWS ... The start of the 2024-2025 academic year on September 1 marks the beginning of Estonia's transition to an entirely Estonian-language education system. ERR News outlines the changes.

01.09.24 NEWS ... Educational psychologist Grete Arro believes that a competitive and comparative education system harms the future of Estonia, as it diminishes students' love for learning and becoming smarter.

01.09.24 NEWS ... Estonian teachers employ classroom activities designed to ensure that students genuinely learn. However, teachers often keep the benefits of these selected activities to themselves. According to a doctoral thesis from Tallinn University, if teachers were to explain during lessons how each activity supports learning, students would later acquire knowledge more effectively on their own, and the development of their learning skills would be better supported.

31.08.24 NEWS ... Estonia on Friday officially became a full member of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the 24th country to join.

30.08.24 NEWS ... Next week, negotiations will once again begin in Estonia regarding teachers' minimum salaries. The Estonian Education Personnel Union (EHL) wants to raise the minimum wage for next year to match Estonia's average national monthly wage, however according to Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas (Eesti 200), that kind of raise won't be possible.

27.08.24 NEWS ... Some students enrolled in teacher education programs at the University of Tartu (TÜ) received an erroneous email at the start of the academic year that gave the impression that their studies may no longer be tuition-free following the current academic year.

27.08.24 OPINION ... The dynamics of student numbers indicate that paid higher education is here to stay, especially in fields with higher demand. Essentially, Estonia is moving back to a financing scheme that was in place before 2013, writes Raul Eamets.

26.08.24 NEWS ... Still common even today in Estonia is the mistaken belief that August sees the highest number of deaths, and that people should avoid having surgery during this time because the surgical wounds would likely get infected. This belief about the mäda aeg, or rotting season, however, has its roots in concepts from folk medicine that simply don't align with evidence-based medicine. Death statistics paint a very different picture.

26.08.24 OPINION ... World War Two and the suffering during and after was the harshest in our recent past. The way to survive such a tragedy is not by allowing oneself to become bitter and yearning for revenge, but through talking and writing about those years and what happened, President Alar Karis said in the opening speech of the "Estonian War Refugees in World War II" conference.

23.08.24 NEWS ... Estonian journalists are increasingly using artificial intelligence in their work. It is considered a supportive tool that, when applied correctly, can be used to their advantage, according to a bachelor's thesis defended at the University of Tartu.

22.08.24 NEWS ... The Ministry of Education plans to introduce partial tuition fees for adult vocational training starting from the 2025 academic year. Vocational training would become fee-based for those who completed the same level of vocational education less than five years ago, as well as for those who graduated from university less than ten years ago.

22.08.24 NEWS ... Estonian-language schools are continuing to gain popularity in Tallinn, with native Russian-speaking children accounting for more than half of first-grade students in recent years. Schools in Lasnamäe, however, are struggling with a lack of both enough space and enough teachers.

22.08.24 NEWS ... Paid microdegree programs offered by Estonian universities are gaining popularity, but the revenue generated from them constitutes a very small portion of universities' total educational funding and does not solve the financial challenges they face.

18.08.24 NEWS ... The University of Tartu (TÜ) Pärnu College received more applications this year than last, and this time around, the most in-demand major was service design and management.

17.08.24 NEWS ... This week, the Estonian student satellite Hämarik burned up in the atmosphere after nearly four years in space. According to project participants, sending the satellite into orbit provided them with a wealth of valuable experience despite its end.

15.08.24 NEWS ... Heavy snow in late April, sweltering Septembers and over a month's worth of rain in the one day in some places hits summer are but some of the extreme weather conditions to have dogged Estonia and the wider world in recent times.

14.08.24 NEWS ... An archaeological dig which followed the unexpected unearthing of human remains in Kuremäe, Ida-Viru County, has established the burial site in question dates to the middle ages or even later.

14.08.24 NEWS ... A satellite built by students at Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech) has made its final orbit and has burned up on re-entry into the earth's atmosphere after nearly four years circling the planet, Postimees reports.

14.08.24 NEWS ... Covid has far from disappeared from the world, and risk groups should continue to get vaccinated, according to virologist Irja Lutsar.

14.08.24 NEWS ... Nearly a quarter of teachers in Estonia do not meet qualification requirements, on the eve of the new academic year.

11.08.24 NEWS ... The chairs of Estonia's parliamentary parties debated free higher education at the 2024 Opinion Festival in Paide this weekend, where the majority agreed that higher education should be tuition-based for at least certain majors.

09.08.24 NEWS ... Citing budget considerations, the Ministry of Education and Research plans to cut the number of lifetime achievement awards in the fields of science and education from the current two and three respectively, to just one award per field, going forward.

08.08.24 NEWS ... The use of Estonian in software, including those utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), is vital to the language's long-term health, Justice and Digital Affairs Minister Liisa Pakosta (Eesti 200) said this week.

07.08.24 NEWS ... The abundance of wild mushrooms varies greatly by region. In Estonia, chanterelles are plentiful in some parts of the country but nearly nonexistent in others. No need for a knife when foraging for chanterelles, though, as according to mycologist Leho Tedersoo, the best way to pick them is actually just by gently twisting them out of the soil.

05.08.24 OPINION ... To better understand national politics in Ukraine, one must look further back into the past, even before World War I, writes Olaf Mertelsmann in a commentary originally published in the journal Universitas Tartuensis.

05.08.24 NEWS ... The chancellor of justice recommended that the Ministry of Climate collect verifiable evidence regarding natural values, citing an incident where a permanent habitat for the eagle owl was established based solely on auditory data. According to Climate Minister Yoko Alender (Reform), the law must ensure that species have the opportunity to re-establish suitable habitats, which requires preserving nesting sites with appropriate conditions, even if the species is not currently present there.

05.08.24 NEWS ... The spread of Spanish slugs in Estonia has accelerated this year. The Environmental Board notes that consistent removal and frequent mowing can somewhat curb their spread, but the invasive species has now proliferated so widely that there is no longer any hope of completely eradicating them.

03.08.24 NEWS ... A rural school once threatened with closure still requires around €70,000 to remain afloat.

02.08.24 NEWS ... In mid-June, the Tiger Valley was opened at the Tallinn Zoo, providing tigers with an environment as close to their natural habitat as possible. Currently, three tigers have arrived in Tallinn and could be seen in the near future.

02.08.24 NEWS ... The storm that primarily battered Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Southern Estonia, last weekend was a rather unusual weather event for several reasons, observed Piia Post, a professor of climate sciences at the University of Tartu. The cyclone that caused the storm is still rotating over Russia and is unusual due to its strength, origin and direction of movement.

31.07.24 NEWS ... With summer comes peak accidental poisoning time as people unwittingly ingest toxic berries and other plants.

30.07.24 NEWS ... A baby crocodile at a zoo on Saaremaa sadly died as a result of what is suspected to have been a human act.

30.07.24 NEWS ... The Estonian Principals' Association (Eesti koolijuhtide ühendus) has hit back at plans by the Ministry of Education to cap top school jobs at five years. Other steps should be taken instead, members said.

30.07.24 NEWS ... The chirping of crickets and grasshoppers is a familiar sound on Estonia's warm summer nights. Tiit Teder, an associate professor of entomology at the University of Tartu, tells ERR about the insects and the phenomenon.

27.07.24 NEWS ... Staff at the Estonian Museum of Natural History were last week presented with a rather unusual looking, dark colored snake, found in Ida-Viru County, ETV news show "Aktuaalne kaamera" (AK) reported.

27.07.24 NEWS ... July has brought the perennial problem of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, to inshore Estonian waters, the Health Board (Terviseamet) reports.

26.07.24 NEWS ... An analysis of education costs published at the beginning of July reveals that international students contribute only 1.3 percent of Estonian educational institutions' revenue. The solution, as Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas (Eesti 200) sees it, lies in increasing the number of students from third countries.

25.07.24 NEWS ... Plans to set a B2 Estonian language requirement for teachers at international schools has been dropped by the government.

25.07.24 NEWS ... An extension will be granted to some teachers learning Estonian at B2 level, the government decided on Thursday, meaning they will be given one-year contracts and not have to leave their jobs in September when the language reform starts.

25.07.24 NEWS ... Scientists are trying to create life in eastern Estonia's former oil shale quarries using floating islands to grow plants and change the water quality.

24.07.24 NEWS ... Although eugenics might seem like a distant and grim topic associated with the British in the 19th century and later the Nazis, progressive race science was also present in interwar Estonia.

22.07.24 NEWS ... The new school year will start on September 1 this year, as tradition dictates, despite being a Sunday, the Ministry of Education and Research confirmed.