{"id":29797,"date":"2026-09-24T14:02:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T10:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/estonia-high-pisa-performance-and-rising-teacher-salaries\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T14:15:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T10:15:22","slug":"estonia-high-pisa-performance-and-rising-teacher-salaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/estonia-high-pisa-performance-and-rising-teacher-salaries\/","title":{"rendered":"Estonia: High PISA Performance and Rising Teacher Salaries"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo source: ua.news<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

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IMPULSE<\/span><\/a><\/div>
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As part of the 2027 draft state budget, the Estonian government plans to raise salaries for teachers and cultural sector workers, among other line items. Despite tight fiscal constraints, Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas confirmed that additional funding for wage increases will be allocated by spending cuts in other sectors. The executive branch plans to finalize the budget in the coming days and submit it to the Riigikogu (Parliament).<\/p>\n

After the Strike<\/strong><\/p>\n

Discussions on salary hikes gained momentum following a wave of protests by education workers. On September 22, Estonian educators held a one-hour warning strike, demanding that previous promises regarding teachers’ pay be fulfilled.<\/p>\n

The Estonian Education Personnel Union also submitted a demand to raise the minimum teacher salary from \u20ac1 970 in 2026 to \u20ac2 312 in 2027 (matching the country’s projected average wage level).<\/p>\n

Prior to the government’s initiative, Union Chairman Reemo Voltri stated that the government was backing away from its commitment to bring teachers’ pay to 120 % of the national average salary.<\/p>\n

Risk of Attrition<\/strong><\/p>\n

Union surveys revealed that 69 % of Estonian teachers have considered leaving the profession over the past year due to heavy workloads and low pay.<\/p>\n

Solutions<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to Minister Kallas, if economic growth reaches 2.4 %, additional tax revenue could amount to up to \u20ac350 million. However, about \u20ac200 million of that would automatically go toward indexed expenditures (pensions, benefits). To fund salary increases, the government is considering scaling back new real estate investments and certain infrastructure expenditures.<\/p>\n

The PISA 2025 Context<\/strong><\/p>\n

These deliberations take place against the backdrop of Estonia’s high performance in PISA 2025. In science, around 90 % of students reached at least Level 2 proficiency; in mathematics and reading, the figure stood at 83 %. The OECD averages are 74%, 65 %, and 69 %, respectively.<\/p>\n

At the highest levels (Level 5 or 6), Estonia reached 13 % of students in mathematics, 11 % in science, and 9 % in reading.<\/p>\n

Teacher Shortage<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alongside high academic outcomes, Estonia faces a teacher shortage. According to PISA 2025 data, 65 % of students attend schools whose principals reported that a shortage of teaching staff hinders instruction to some extent or significantly (OECD average: 39 %). In 2022, this figure in Estonia was 73 %.<\/p>\n

“Growth Mindset”<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Estonia, 83 % of students agree that intelligence can be developed through hard work and effort (OECD average is 69 %). Students with a growth mindset score an average of 36 points higher in science.<\/p>\n

Digital Environment and Artificial Intelligence<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Estonia, 58 % of students use AI chatbots for learning purposes at least once a week, compared to the OECD average of 46 %. At the same time, 36 % of students reported that classmates get distracted by digital devices during lessons.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Estonia is raising teachers’ salaries: High PISA results amid a staffing crisis and strike. As part of the 2027 draft state budget, the Estonian government plans to increase the salaries of teachers and cultural workers. Despite tight fiscal constraints, Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas confirmed that the additional funding will be secured by cutting expenditures in other sectors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29798,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,483,221],"tags":[511],"class_list":["post-29797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-in-the-world-en","category-international-news-en","category-news-en","tag-511"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29797"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29801,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29797\/revisions\/29801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediaforedu.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}