Since Tallinn is the country's growth pole and many persons with ambition in both private and public sectors tend to move there, the bulk of the Government's resources is devoted to developing Tallinn. The Government needs to make a fundamental decision as to whether it wants to continue to concentrate development in Tallinn, which will eventually lead to a greater concentration of population there, creating a nation with an overdeveloped head and a sickly body, or whether it wants a more balanced pattern of regional development. This Strategy recommends the latter as more appropriate for our country. If that broad recommendation is accepted, then the specific recommendations of this Chapter and the other Chapters in the Strategy need to be taken seriously and implemented.
In rural areas, it should be remembered that the sovkhozes and kolkhozes, inefficient though they were economically, nevertheless provided a wide range of social services to their members, and their role has not yet been adequately replaced by other institutions.
While it would be impossible to guarantee absolute equality of social services in all regions of the country, nevertheless the national objectives for rural social policy should be to:
Improve substantially the level of basic rural social services.
Enhance the capabilities of local governments and non-governmental institutions to provide social services on a continuing basis, in effect decentralising government to a degree.
Strengthen the abilities of individuals to. meet their own social and economic needs in the future, above all through economic policy that creates more growth in employment, but also through vastly improved programmes of vocational education and labour force training.
Through programmes of special incentives and supporting infrastructure, promote a geographical decentralisation of economic activity and economic decision-making in Estonia.
Rural social problems affect not only rural areas but all of Estonian society. We are one people, and our policies should not favour one segment of the population at the expense of another. Social and economic problems in rural areas cost the entire society in many ways, including lost productivity and additional fiscal expenditures on social support measures. In addition, some of the unemployed and disaffected persons migrate to urban areas where they are easy prey for those few who prefer illegal and anti-social activities.
As the comments in the preceding sections have indicated, rural social problems cannot be solved by palliatives, by measures which only treat the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of the problems. In the longer run, solutions can only arise out of a more balanced intersectoral pattern of economic growth and more decentralised economic activity in many sectors. A concrete and forceful programme of developing regional growth centres is required. Equally, the financial and administrative capacities of local governments must be strengthened, the corresponding social programmes strengthened, and all channels must be improved for citizen participation in solving problems of common concern.
A third basic pillar of rural social policy is improvement in quality and accessibility of rural education, most particularly technical vocational education and labour force training. In this area, advances lag much behind those of other forms of education. In order to reduce unemployment and underemployment it is urgent and essential to carry out a fundamental restructuring of the system of vocational education and training. The fourth basic pillar should the reorientation of national policies toward small farms, which are by far the most numerous kind of farm but which so far have been practically ignored by policymakers and excluded from some basic rights that larger private farms have obtained.
These general orientations are developed more fully in the remainder of this section, along with a number of specific supporting recommendations.
The most effective means of reducing unemployment and poverty in the countryside is the creation of rural economic growth. This can occur in part through a recuperation of agricultural growth, following the recommendations of the other Chapters in this Strategy. Agricultural growth not only generates more employment on farms. It also creates additional demand for agricultural services and increases purchasing power in the countryside, which creates demands for other kinds of goods and services, some of which can be supplied locally.
Rural economic growth also requires diversification, which means the development of more industries and service centres in the countryside. Estonia is a relatively compact country by European standards, and the network of main highways is in relatively good condition, so industrial decentralisation from the Tallinn area need not imply inefficiencies in production. The small increase in costs that might result from location in rural areas can easily be offset by lower land costs and the advantages of a rural environment for the labour force and its families.
By the same token, it will not be feasible to develop industries in every county. Regional growth poles will need to emerge, and for that to occur it will be necessary to make additional investments in infrastructure and to provide transitory incentives for industries and service enterprises to locate there. The basic recommendations in this area are to:
On the basis of careful analysis, identify 15 potential growth poles throughout the country, other than Tallinn, Harjumaa and East Virumaa.
Work closely with local governments, business associations, farmers associations, labour unions, and other voluntary associations in drawing up sustainable development plans for the growth poles.
Substantially increase the budget of the national government for infrastructure investments, and concentrate the increase in such investments in the growth poles. The identification of which kinds of investments should receive priority should be made jointly with local governments and local voluntary associations, as part of the development plans.
Concentrate technical and vocational education programmes in those growth poles (see below for further discussion of these programmes).
Provide significant tax incentives for a seven-year period for Estonian firms choosing to locate in the growth poles or to expand their existing operations there.
Provide special incentives for foreign investments to locate in the growth poles.
Establish branch offices of national government entities and programmes in the growth poles, to help create a critical mass of employment in each of those centres.
Work with local governments in establishing municipal forests and other areas for recreation and nature study on the perimeter of the growth poles, to ensure that the environmental quality is maintained. (See Chapters 6 and 10 on. the subject of the municipal forests.)
By themselves, the infrastructure investment projects in the regional growth poles will generate considerable“ amounts of new employment. Over the longer run, the development of regional growth poles will not only favour the creation of non-agricultural employment in rural areas, but such poles also will come to be centres of services, including cultural attractions and other amenities for families. In that sense, they will improve the quality of life for the farm population in surrounding areas, which will gain easier access to such services. A more direct contribution to the quality of rural life will be the provision of employment opportunities for the spouses and children of farm workers.
In view of national policy with respect to borderlands, at least one of the growth poles should be located on the islands and at least two should be located near inland borders. Supporting policies should include negotiations to reduce the customs delays at the border with Latvia and to reduce the barriers to trade that have been imposed by Russia.
One of the most effective ways to reduce poverty in the countryside is to support the further intensification of agriculture on the household plots. Those plots already are much more productive per hectare than agricultural enterprises and larger family exploitations classified as “private farms” (see Chapter 3) and only their small size keeps their families in relative poverty. While small plots cannot be converted into grain farms or dairies which are competitive, they can be competitive in many products, including most fruits and vegetables, spices, decorative plants, honey and other specialised crops.
These household plots are handicapped by current policies in a way that larger family farms are not, that is, they have not been given legal title to their land. This means the land cannot be passed to heirs, the incentives for investing in improving the land are nullified, and the land cannot be used as collateral for bank loans to cover production costs. There is no logical reason why the poorest farming families, who should receive assistance, instead are penalised by policy. Therefore it is urgent to implement the recommendations of Chapter 3 for titling these farms.
It should be pointed out that having title to the land means having an asset of value. In the case of the household plots, this asset has been earned by a lifetime of work on State farms and collective farms. With title to the land, some of these families will be able to sell their plots and start life in another location or sector with a small sum of capital to help them make the transition. Therefore, the recommended programme of titling would encourage a reallocation of labour to nonagricultural occupations and at the same time would provide the legal foundation for a more active land market which would lead to a gradual consolidation of some of those plots into larger farms which could be competitive in a broader range of crops. Meanwhile, those farmers who choose to remain with their plots could make them even more productive with the asset represented by the land title. From a rural social viewpoint, this programme would be one of the most important. Other forms of support for household plots are discussed below.
It is a national priority to encourage the rural unemployed to seek jobs in new agricultural support enterprises and in other sectors. To a large degree the rural unemployed represent what formerly was excess employment on the State and collective farms, and therefore their present condition of joblessness was directly brought about by the change of economic regime. While the State does not have a long-term responsibility for caring for these people, because individual initiative must be encouraged, there is a societal responsibility for assisting them partially in the transition to new employment situations. Labour force training, discussed in detail below, will be one of the main forms of providing this assistance. In addition, several other specific measures should be implemented as follows:
For the alleviating the effects of the present situation of unemployment, the most fundamental and urgent requirement is that the support provided by labour market agency should be extended to people who have officially lost the status of unemployed. The official definition of unemployment needs to be broadened so that it reflects accurately the unemployment situation, rather than significantly understating it, as it does now. This will permit legitimate access to unemployment benefits by many persons who do not now receive them.
At the same time, the scale of the unemployment benefits should be kept fairly low, to avoid encouraging long-run dependence on them. A margin of flexibility should be given to local governments to raise those benefits somewhat for their localities, if they find it necessary for particular reasons.
Unemployment benefits, other social benefits, and reimbursements from accident insurance should be entirely exempt from income taxes.
In recognition of the distances that must be traveled to new jobs in rural areas, the costs of transport in seeking jobs and commuting to jobs from rural residences should be made deductible from income tax obligations. Exemptions for the usage of personal car from taxes should coincide the limits established by the Estonian Government.
In the financing of social support measures, it is necessary to provide sufficient credit from the national budget to local governments so that the benefits are paid in time even if local governments' budgets have not received enough funds by that moment.
Pensions and other social benefits should be paid up to four times a month, upon the request of the recipient.
Ensure that social benefits are paid to handicapped persons who are forced to give up their jobs because of the changing economic situation or who have been released from institutions for special care.
National government, local governments and business organisations should collaborate in establishing business rooms in each community, where information would be available on starting and managing businesses, marketing methods and market prospects, tax obligations, environmental obligations, other legal issues, and related subjects. In villages it also would be important to establish meeting rooms which could be used for a modest fee by those farmers and small entrepreneurs who need a place to convene business meetings but do not have their own offices.
The above-mentioned programme of titling the land of subsistence farms will, in conclusion, help to reduce public social subsidies and other expenditures, and it will also ease the social tension between different regions, branches of economy and social groups. Supporting subsistence farms in this and other ways slows down the decline in the number of rural inhabitants and the subsequent concentration of people with coping problems and tensions in the towns. It is in fact much cheaper than re-populating the regions that have become empty and providing funding to solve the social problems that arise from leaving household plots in an undefined legal status and with no support. In addition, when considering national security, it is important to support household plots located in borderlands and densely populated areas.
Differences between the size and development directions in Estonian farms are greater than those in countries with well developed agriculture, although in Denmark for example, there are several different farm advisory systems for different sizes and market orientations of farms. In Estonia a considerably more important role is played by self-supply of foods: rural people and their town relatives consume themselves much of what household plots produce in fruit, berries, vegetable, potatoes, wool, milk and meat. Therefore Estonia cannot apply all aspects of the support systems used in other countries.
The subsistence farms (household plots) generally have the knowledge and technology necessary for production activities, but the supportive structures that used to operate before, supplying services of combines and other machinery, insemination, joint input purchase, marketing, etc., have stopped with the restructuring of the collective and State farms.
The farm advisory services need to make household plots one of their priorities (Chapter 6), and for at least several more years the Government needs to subsidise the provision of advisory services to these farms. Advice on farm management, the preparation of business plans, quality control, and marketing is especially needed. Advisory recommendations for subsistence farms also could include ways to contract the production in advance to buyers, possibilities for supplementary technology (milk cooling equipment, silage technology, plant protection, breed improvement), options for narrower specialisations (berry or fruit growing, potato growing, spice cultivation, etc.), strengthening links to processing industries (cheese, cottage cheese, woolen products, etc.), and making the transition to more suitable forms of production and technology (tourism farms, ecological agriculture, herb growing, mushroom growing, seed growing). Ecological agriculture offers a potentially very profitable niche for small farms.
Other supporting services can be established for the subsistence farms employing retired persons and other persons who are no longer fully employed. At first, this can be a responsibility of local government, managed by heads of villages and social workers of the communities. Eventually, if the services prove their value and they help raise incomes on household plots, they could be transferred to private sector providers. Such services can include ploughing, cultivation of land, providing seeds and fertilisers, sowing, weed control and plant protection, harvesting, crop drying, insemination and simple animal care, milk cooling, advice in organising joint purchases of inputs and joint marketing of outputs, joint transport, and advice on bookkeeping systems.
Another area in which advisory assistance for small farms is needed, and which is of great importance for enabling those farmers to better themselves economically through their own efforts in the future, is assistance in the organisation of cooperatives for marketing, crop storage, input purchase, obtaining machinery services, and other functions. Equally, advice in needed on how to make the transition from cooperatives to joint stock companies. The recommendations of Chapter 6 in these respects should be implemented.
State support should also be provided for developing and introducing the technology suitable for small-scale production through training centres and enterprises concerned with the production and marketing of the corresponding inputs and equipment. This kind of support can be provided in coordination with special projects of applied research and the advisory services. In such a way, part of the start-up cost of enterprises serving small farms can be subscribed by the Government, through special loans and grants.
Public subsidies to subsistence farms should include paying the excise tax compensation directly to the service provider, releasing services from VAT, and the provision of production loans to these farms from the Agriculture and Rural Life Credit Fund.
It is very important to establish legislation through which the families working subsistence farms can use the services of the sick-fund and receive the dole in case the activities are stopped or sharply reduced. At the same time, full retirement benefits should go to subsistence farmers when they reach the appropriate age, and the procedures for obtaining social benefits should be simplified, so that all the persons who have a right to them can readily obtain them.
In all the programmes of support to subsistence farms it is important to distinguish between full-time farmers and hobby farmers. The latter should not qualify for the assistance. Part-time farmers of small plots who have low income and use farming as an essential supplement for their incomes should receive the assistance.
Complementary measures for local governments should include preventing weeds from growing on uncultivated farm lands, turning them into meadows or reforesting previous forest lands, and other environmental protection measures and landscape improvement. These kinds of measures can also provide additional income for persons from subsistence farms.
In conclusion, providing the appropriate and well-justified support to subsistence farms would require the Government to take an attitude completely different from the one it has displayed up to the present. Nevertheless, the benefits would be quite substantial in terms of additional agricultural production, poverty reduction, improving village life, and reducing social costs to the nation
The most important objective in this area is to restore more initiative and decision-making power to the villages. A basic prerequisite for this, as mentioned, is to provide them with the appropriate legal status and to allow devolution of more local responsibilities down to the village level. Representatives of the village movement should participate in determining the nature of legislation for this purpose. State support also means financing the formulation of village development plans through participatory methods. Those villages which demonstrate the greatest interest in formulating their own plans and in contributing to their realisation, and the most ability to engender cooperation among their residents, should be rewarded with the greatest allocations of funding for improvement of infrastructure. If such a policy is followed for several years, villages which have been laggards or have internal conflicts will begin to realise the value of changing their ways and will become anxious to participate in the programme in a more genuine manner. The mechanism of requiring the development plans can be a way of ensuring that decisions concerning the development of a village are discussed with all interested parties beforehand.
The movement of “Kodukant” should be carried on and strengthened, thus supporting village life in general. A survey should be made about the structure of the movement, its activities and different forms in different villages and counties. (As a principal activity, the movement arranges Rural Days, which initally are channels for providing advisory services.) When villages and small towns acquire legal status, associations of such entities should be developed out of the movement “Kodukant,” so that the participants in the movement are not only its most enthusiastic supporters but also the authorised representatives of villages and small towns. Rural Days can then become a focal point of the activity of those associations.
Working groups and sub-commissions of the movement should be established more systematically for researching particular topics and setting up informational centres and campaigns. The Government recognises the movement as representative of villages and its members to participate in commissions, boards and meetings dealing with rural life. This relationship needs to be strengthened, to promote wider participation in formulating village development plans and in securing greater Government funding for carrying out those plans. The relationship can also be used for establishing horizontal linkages with other programmes, such as settlement programmes, “tiger's jump,” and Government-supported information centres. The villages which most merit support are those which have shown the most initiative in formulating and carrying out their 'development plans. Comparative experiences of villages should be disseminated in order to motivate the less active ones.
Every community should have rooms which are temporary residences that can be made available for visiting specialists, and highly required specialists until they can find the suitable living rooms themselves, and in addition social flats (for people with little income), safety flats (for emergencies), care flats (where a person is taken care of by a social worker) and a refuge for homeless.
The main concerns of family policy should include the welfare of a family and its members, their health and personal development, and their ability to cooperate usefully with the rest of the society. All family types should be in equal position and equally considered in all family policy measures. Those measures should be equally available in all regions. All family members should be viewed as equals from the viewpoint of family policy. Family policy supports the initiative of family members and assigns them responsibility for family welfare and development. Nevertheless, family policy must support the establishment of best possible upbringing environment for all children.
The solution for the handicapped and mentally ill is to integrated them into society, and to raise the different forms of care-taking to the same level, both in the community and in the family. The handicapped should be encouraged to participate as fully as possible in the family, the activities of the care centre, or the community. What should be emphasised is not disabilities, but abilities and ways of developed and using skills.
National policy for the handicapped should encourage their employment in agriculture and other branches, relieving the salary paid to them partially or fully (depending on the handicap) from tax revenues. Another needed step is to increase the standard living space of invalids requiring special care (considering the need for wheelchairs, etc.) when considering the dwelling support.
Equally, the invalid pension should be increased to at least as much as the old- age pension, so that relatives could be interested in taking care of the invalids themselves instead of putting them into care houses at the expense of the national government or local governments. Every community should have a careflat where people having no relatives could come to receive regular care.
Communities should be able to pay people who take care of their relatives, acquaintances or neighbours. This payment should depend on the frequency, amount and quality of care; Care institutions of communities should monitor the situation of handicapped people living at home, to ensure that they get necessary training and that their living conditions meet the requirements.
Local care institutions are very important. They can deal with most disabilities (and also the elderly with no families) and some chronic diseases. They can play a crucial role in facilitating the transition of patients from long-term medical treatment back into reasonably normal life. Care centres should not be 100% filled, so that in emergencies it would be possible to place people there temporarily, at the cost of relatives or local governments.
Legislation should be developed to allow the financing of medical services offered by social workers (making injections, measuring the blood pressure) by sick funds. When taking into account the pension tenure the care period of invalids (including invalid group II) should also considered.
Regarding medical insurance for rural people, regulations should be amended to allow people who are not working to insure themselves voluntarily through sick funds. Transport expenses for obtaining medical care outside of one's home community should be covered by the sick fund.
It is very important to try to ensure that children are raised in a family environment whenever possible. For this reason, it is important to ensure that the amount of unemployment benefits and other social benefits are made to depend on the family's average income per household member, independently of whether a father is present. Tying some benefits to single mothers has the perverse result of encouraging families in poverty to break up (sometimes fictitiously, sometimes in reality). To the contrary, they should be encouraged to stay together. This lesson has been learned in several countries (although it has not yet be applied in all those cases), and Estonia should not repeat the mistake of others. In other words, equal benefits should be provided to a family of mother, father and child with income of EEK 300, as for a family of mother and child with an income of EEK 200.
In addition, for Estonia's future it is vital to support middle class families with children and to link child-raising support with their attendance at school and, at a later age, starting to work.
Another keystone of family policy for children should be the provision of long-term building loans and mortgages for young families and families with many children, the collateral for which is a house or a flat. Part of such loans can be cancelled after the children graduate from secondary school and start working or go to college, as an incentive to educate children.
On the other hand, increasing the sums of childbirth benefits does not provide the expected effect: the number of children increases, but moreover the number of children from asocial (dysfunctional) families increases even more rapidly (as can be concluded from Paide experience in 1996). It is also not advisable to differentiate the kindergarten fee according to the parents' income. Those who would suffer most from such a step would be primarily families with moderate income, who could be willing and able to raise even more than one or two children if their means allowed it. Rich parents can use baby sitters and private kindergartens and basing such support on income does not concern them.
Putting up children for early adoption should be encouraged in the case of dysfunctional families, while fully respecting their right to make the decision. One problem is the illegal sale of children by such families. This is a very delicate area, but the Government could explore the possibility of provide a monetary incentive to dysfunctional families that are willing to put their children up for legal adoption, to fulfill the two objectives of having the children raised better and avoiding a black market in children. Clearly, the role of family counselors at the community level will be crucial in making any policy work well in this area.
Taking care of orphans and children with no parental care should be a community-level responsibility. This would encourage communities to take an early interest in problem families and if necessary to identify where to place the children, whether with relatives, acquaintances, neighbours or adoptive parents. The national government must play an oversight role in this area, to ensure communities perform their functions properly, and to be prepared to prosecute communities on behalf of children who are not adequately treated. The national government also must take responsibility for persons who need institutional care but whose home communities cannot be identified.
Programmes should be developed to heighten the interest of older children in eventually staying in rural areas. Such programmes can include loans and grants for children of low-income families to finish rural high school (income-earning opportunities are deferred), and rural internships that are six-months to a year long for college students studying subjects like environmental sciences, agriculture, forestry, water management, fisheries, geology, sociology, political science, economics, accounting, medicine and law.
The principal material and physical problems of elderly people are connected with poverty or physical impairment resulting from old age, so they should be provided the kinds of support measures mentioned elsewhere in this Chapter. Problems of a more psychological or social nature include too little communication with others and a lack of sufficient activities after their children have become independent. To overcome these problems elderly people should be brought into social activities, their organisations should be supported and special events should be organised for them. Local governments play the main role in this regard, especially villages, and they will need financial support from the national government for that purpose.
Pension reform linking pensions with the years worked and the salary received must be completed as soon as possible. Draft laws are under consideration that should solve major problems in this area but it is important to modify the drafts so that periods worked on household plots (subsistence farms) are considered in calculating social insurance benefits.
Alcoholism generally can be eliminated by discovering and getting rid of its underlying causes. The treatment of alcoholics depends on the willingness of themselves and their acquaintances, and on their behavior. The national and local governments can take steps in regulating sales of alcohol, publicising alcohol-related problems, and supporting the activities and treatment of alcoholics anonymous. Special attention should be given to alcoholic parents.
The national and local governments should more forcefully regulate the advertising of alcohol check how the regulations are followed. Police must provide local governments with the relevant information.
The theme of a healthy lifestyle must be incorporated into school programmes, using positive role models who convey the message that the biggest chances to become successful lie in not using alcohol and drugs. The attitude that using alcohol and 'drugs is a question of personal taste is not correct. Rural regions have better preconditions for handling this problem because mechanisms of social control still work better there. At the same time it should be taken into account that several regions have few local positive role models, as the more active and successful people have moved away. Local governments need to share experiences and support each other's programmes in this area. Alcohol and drug abuse are problems that know no boundaries.
The efforts to develop national standards and ensure their application in all parts of the country should be continued. Measures should be taken so that all children receive equal shares of national and local administrative and support and even the children living in the smallest settlements and villages can attend schools in the same area. The cooperation of local administrations is needed to increase support for kindergartens and schools that combine basic education with child care. Private initiative for such schools and child care at home should be supported as well. Institutional mechanisms need to be strengthened to facilitate constructive pressure from the local populations, especially parents of school-age children, on local administrations. A policy of minimising the closing of small rural schools should be adopted, given the importance of children attending school close to home. In addition, for families living in more remote rural areas, where in spite of this policy children have to travel significant distances to continue their education, a policy of compensation for those travel costs (distance coefficients) should be developed.
The national government should support local governments in carrying out a programme of loans for local students to attend high school and university, with the provision that part of the loan will be cancelled if the student subsequently returns to his or her home area to work.
Educational, regional and social policy should be examined thoroughly with the purpose of equalising opportunities for elementary education and standardise the actual quality of education received. Additional training of teachers should be financed on a larger scale, as a national priority., and a programme of special incentives should be developed to encourage well-qualified teachers to staff the more remote rural schools, for rotating periods of a few years each.
Computers should be brought to every school; schools should be connected into computer network Computers should be used in everyday teaching as much as possible, not only for mastering computer literacy. Teachers of all the subjects should also learn how to use computers for teaching their subject, and the corresponding programmes and software should be developed.
Rural gymnasiums should consider specific features of rural life and the characteristics of their regions when compiling teaching programmes. There should be greater concentration on occupational education. Like basic schools, high schools should strive to be general cultural and social centres of the region, and they should offer continuing education.
a) The design and administration of the programmes
The system of occupational education as a whole should be reformed and updated in light of the problems discussed. It should be integrated with the rest of educational system in the sense that the training areas offered should enable people to continue with further training, if they wish and can do so. Acquiring the desired specialised, professional or occupational education and reaching desired level of standard education should be possible with optimum use of time and at an affordable cost.
Specialities, occupations and professions being taught should be useful at this moment and also in the future, that is, they should coincide with the requirements of the labour market, and they should be dynamic and flexible enough, taking into consideration changes in society and economy. The highest level of vocational education should concern the training of a new generation of lecturers. This should happen in cooperation between different colleges and universities. At the same time continuing professional training, refresher courses, and vocational education of adults should be basic components of the programme.
Oganisations of employers and employees should also participate in the process of organisation of vocational education. Professional certificates should be issued by a professional organisation, not by a teaching institution. Employers should also offer some material support to labour education. In order to ensure active and meaningful participation of employers and labour unions, a National Council for Technical Education and Training should be formed, with representatives from employers' associations, labour unions, and the Ministries of Education, Economy and Agriculture. This council should be given a mandate to design vocational education programmes and monitor their performance and require improvements if the performance is not satisfactory. Also, mechanisms should be found to permit employers to make financial contributions to the training programmes, since that is the best way to elicit from them a real interest in the programmes. This recommendation would require new legislation and fundamental institutional changes, but it represents the best way to achieve the needed improvements in vocational education. The course offerings of all the educational establishments should be coordinated in the same system of vocational education.
Vocational education establishments giving agricultural education have to consider the fact that perspectives of traditional agricultural activities will be even smaller in the future. As rural population will be looking for alternative options, teaching institutions specialising in agricultural education should also be reoriented, taking into account the broader perspectives of rural life as well as new aspects of agriculture such as quality control and ecological cultivation. Instead of agriculture alone the programmes should be oriented toward the rural economy. If vocational training is organised in accordance with regional needs, the probability that the specialities being taught correspond to changing requirements of labour market will also be greater. Regional studies on that topic have proved this statement.
The result of better training programmes will be development of entrepreneurship, regional development, decreasing unemployment and fewer social problems.
Labour education establishments of rural areas, also establishments of agricultural education should expand their profiles. They should become educational and cultural centres that offer continuing adult education, advice, and other information in addition to basic vocational education.
Up to now most of the funding meant for adult training has been spent on re-training of unemployed people. It would be correct to use this money also for preventing unemployment by providing refresher courses for employee's.
The transition to an information-biased society should be encouraged in vocational education and rural training for the rural economy. When establishing computer networks and data basis we should take into consideration that we need common interests and cooperation of different occupations. Correspondence studies through computer networks and use of active methods would enable the population of outlying areas and areas with scattered population to participate in processes of continuing education. Electronic communication also gives a chance to decrease training expenditures, as there will be less accommodation and travel costs, so the number of students admitted to training programmes be much bigger than for traditional forms of teaching and learning.
The institutions that participate in providing technical vocational education and training can include vocational high schools, technical schools, applied colleges, centres of continuing education (also located at colleges and universities), municipal or regional training centres, training centres of companies, and organisational training centres.
b) The financing of training
Many establishments offering labour education are being financed by the Government. Many nationally accepted municipal training centres and colleges also get their funding from the government. The size of the last group is decreasing all the time. Funds for training teachers have been decreasing and make up only 1% of the budget for wages; in accordance to legislation concerning adult training this should be at least 3% of budget for wages (in spite of teaching programmes being reformed, which requires extensive additional training of teachers). Some forms of vocational education can apply for support from different foundations (for example, through ETKA “Andras”). PHARE funding is also very important, as they are supporting reforms of professional education.
Private firms take care of funding their own training themselves. In addition, through the proposed National Council on Technical Vocational Education and Training, they can make contributions to national training programmes in their fields of interest.
As education is a process, the effect of which becomes apparent only after some time, it is very difficult to say something about the profitability for the recipient. In the case of vocational education the results are seen sooner. This is the reason why innovative employers are willing to invest in the training of employees. Here the profitability can be measured by increased efficiency and quality, better work attitudes, retention of personnel, etc.
For some forms of vocational education students and interested organisations are willing to pay themselves, especially if they are dealing with national or public establishments that offer training that improve a person's competitiveness in the labour market (training concerning legislation, economic training, management training,.languages, computer sciences, etc.). Such training will be always profitable for a private company. The situation in regard to the training of teachers is completely different. Profitability issues of agricultural education are also rather complicated, as a large share of the target group has little or no purchasing power. This means that public funding is important, at least for an extended transition period until the recovery of the agricultural sector is well underway.
Among the immediate steps to improve vocational education in rural areas, it is necessary to prolong and extend PHARE project. At the present moment this involves 13 schools and the project should be extended to other schools. Vocational education reforms and the PHARE project should be synchronised.
Educational institutions, those offering vocational education included, shouldn't be liquidated just on the basis of short-term economising. A long-term view is needed. There should be centres of vocational and continuing education in every county and their planned capacity should be scaled to the size of the local population. This should be coordinated at the levels of both national and local administrations.
The national government should continue to finance vocational education establishments even after they have been transferred to the control of local or regional administrations, but such financing should follow the plans of the proposed National Council on Technical Vocational Education and Training.
To guarantee new generations of teachers and lecturers we need to develop and initiate correspondence training programmes. This is especially important for colleges and universities, the Agricultural University included.
When discussing financing, integral solutions should get a preference, for example, financing development projects of a company or regional vocational education development projects as a whole. Not only expenditures on construction and purchase of equipment and apparatus should be considered as investments, but also the training of people, or human capital.
Finally, when developing vocational education and professional requirements and profiles, we should take into consideration requirements, regulations, and legal acts that are being followed all over the world, especially in Europe.
Table 8-A1
Population
| Jan. 1 1989 | Jan. 1 1996 | Change in 1989–1995 | |
| Total | 1 565662 | 1 476301 | -89,4 |
| Male | 731392 | 687978 | -43,4 |
| Female | 834270 Percentage from total in brackets | 788323 | -46 |
| Towns | 1118829 (=71,5%) | 1029719 (=69,7%) | |
| Countryside | 446833 (=28,5%) | 446582 (=30,25%) | |
| Estonians | 963281 (=61,5%) | 957948 | |
| Other nationalities | 602381 (=38,5%) | 533635 (=35,8%) |
Table 8-A2
Distribution of Population by Nationalities and Places of Residence, Jan. 1, 1995
(in percentage)
| Countryside | Town | Total | |
| Estonians | 26.0 | 37.3 | 64.2 |
| Other nationalities | 3.1 | 32.7 | 35.8 |
| Total | 30.0 | 70.0 | 100.0 |
Sources: Estonian Statistics Yearbook 1996. Tallinn. Statistical office of Estonia.
Estonian Population by Census of the Population. 1 part (1995). Tallinn. Statistical Office of Estonia.
Estonian Population by Census of the Population. II part (1996). Tallinn. Statistical Office of Estonia.
Table 8-A3
Number of Employed Persons in the Rural Population
(in thousands)
| 1959 | 1970 | 1979 | 1989 | |
| Male | 135,6 | 115,3 | 110,5 | 116,0 |
| Female | 132,9 | 102,0 | 96,8 | 98,7 |
| Total | 268,4 | 217,3 | 207,3 | 214,7 |
Sources: Estonian Statistics Yearbook 1996, Tallinn, Statistical Office of Estonia
Estonian Population by the Census of Population, I part (1995), Tallinn, Statistical Office of Estonia
Estonian Population by the Census of Population, II part (1996), Tallinn, Statistical Office of Estonia
Estonian Regional Statistics 1995 (1996), Tallinn, Statistical Office of Estonia
Estonian Social Statistics (1994), Tallinn
Estonian Statistics Monthly (1994, 1995, 1996), Tallinn, State Statistical Office
Table 8-A4
Structure of Employment by Fields of Activity at the End of the Year
(in percentages data of State Statistical Office)
| 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | Change 1993 1995 | |
| Agriculture (except farms) | 13.2 | 7.6 | 6.3 | 5.3 | -7.9 |
| Forestry | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 1.4 | +0.1 |
| Fishery | 2.0 | 1.6 | 1.1 | 0.7 | -1.3 |
| Agrarian sector in total | 16.5 | 10.7 | 9.0 | 7.4 | -9.1 |
| Industrial sector in total | 37.1 | 35.6 | 36.5 | 36.5 | -0.6 |
| Service sector | 46.4 | 53.7 | 54.5 | 56.1 | +9.7 |
| Total | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 0 |
Source: The Bulletins of the Bank of Estonian, 1994 no.7; 1995 no. 2 and 4; 1996 no.4
Table 8-A5
Number of Employees with Higher Education in 1989 by Field of Activity and Place of Residence
| Fields of activity | Countryside | Town | Total |
| Agriculture and Forestry | 7097 (6.9) | 2649 (13.7) | 9746 (8.0) |
| Industry and Construction | 2436 (4.9) | 33757 (11.3) | 36193 (10.4) |
| Other fields of activity among this education culture and science | 10460 (16.9) 6259 (30.7) | 71278 (22.5) 30106 (43.6) | 81738 (21.6) 36365 (40.6) |
| Total | 19993 (9.3) | 107684 (16.9) | 127677 (15.0) |
In brackets: percentage of the general number of employees (by their activities); on the basis of census.
Source: Estonian Population by the Census of Population, I part (1995), Tallinn, Statistical Office of Estonia.
Estonian Population by the Census of Population, II part (1996), Tallinn, Statistical Office of Estonia.
Table 8-A6
Average Characteristics of Rural Communities (1995)
(indicating countries with high and low values)
| Number of permanent inhabitants at the beginning of 1996 | 2212 |
| Change of number of inhabitants in 1995 | +11 |
| Area (square kilometres) | 217 |
| Density of population (inh./ per square kilometre) | 10.2 |
| Number of households (HH). (of that number, farms) | 948 (50) |
| Share of total population in institutional households | 0.94% (Läänemaa 2.76%; Saaremaa 2.26%) |
| Persons per household (family size) | 2.31 (Võru; Ida-Viru 2.1 Hiiu, Saare 2.55) |
| Persons younger than working age per 1000 permanent inhabitants | 245 (Hiiumaa 275. Ida-Viru 209) |
| Persons older than working age per 1000 permanent inhabitants | 213 (Harju. Hiiu 182. Põlva 262. Ida-Viru 259) |
| Farm household % of total HH | 5.4% (Põlva 13.4%. Harju 1.8%) |
| Family members per farm | 2.39 (Valga 1.9; Voru 2.1; Saare 3.2) |
| No. of employees per private farm | 1.12 (Valga 0.9; Rapla 1.4) |
| No. of employees in the community (1996) | 852 |
| Change of no. of employees in 1994 and 1995 (both years together) | -26 |
Sources: Estonian Regional Statistics 1995 (1996), Estonian Statistical Office, Tallinn;
Estonian Communities Population (as of January 1, 1996), Estonian Statistical Office, Tallinn.
Table 8-A7
Distribution of the Rural Employed, 1995
(with high and low values by county)
| Of working age (%) | 92.5 (Hiiu. Järva 96;… Rapla 87; V˜ru 83) |
| Women per 100 men | 122 (Rapla 111;… Viljandi 132) |
| Works outside community (%) | 27.3 (Vōru 18.6; Rapla 19.0;… Ida-Viru31.7; Harju 43.9) |
| Salaried employees (%) | 82.4 (Võru 64.1;… Harju 91.8) |
| Liberal professions: % of individual workers | 0.9 (Tartu 0.3 Valga. Võru 0.4… Hiiu 3.5) |
| Entrepreneurs (%) | 2.5 (Ida-Viru 1.4…Harju. Põlva 3.3) |
| Farmers (%) | 6.5 (Harju 2.1… Rapla 12.0 Pōlva 15.6) |
| Work in own household (%) | 7.7 (Võru 23.8 Rapla 16.2… Harju 1.8 Järva 2.2) |
Table 8-A8
Employment Characteristics of Rural Pensioners in Selected Counties (1995)
| County | Percentage of Pensioners Who Are Employed | Pensioners as % of Employed Persons | % of Pensioners Working in Own HH or Farm |
| Rapla | 28,8 | 12,7 | 28,2 |
| Võru | 26,4 | 17,3 | 32,8 |
| Lääne | 19,4 | 9,9 | 18,9 |
| ......... | ......... | ......... | ......... |
| Hiiu | 7,8 | 3,6 | 10,8 |
| Järva | 7,8 | 3,8 | 7.9 |
| Saare | 7,3 | 4,6 | 11,1 |
| Average rural community | 13,5 | 7,4 | 14,2 |
Table 8-A9
Measures of Unemployment in 1995 (by quarters, in percentages)
| I | II | III | IV | |
| Job seekers as a share of the working age population (by data of EMOR) | 6,2 | 6,3 | 5,6 | 5,8 |
| By data of Labour Office | 4,4 | 4,2 | 3,8 | 4,0 |
| Job seekers as a share of the labour forte (by data of EMOR) | 7,9 | 8,0 | 7,0 | 7,2 |
| Unemployment rate by macroeconomic analysis of the Bank of Estonia | 5,4 | 5,2 | 4,8 | 5,0 |
Table 8-A10
Characteristics of the Rural Labour Force and the Rural Unemployed, 1995
(with minimum and maximum values by country)
| The employed share of the working age population (%) | 65.7 (Viljandi 58; Harju 73.%) |
| % the working age population in programmes of study | 8.9 |
| The economic maintenance ratio (employed persons/unemployed population) | 1.6 (Viljandi 1.9; Harju 1.2) |
| Official rate of unemployment (%) | 2.75 (Harju 0.58; Ida-Vim 5.80) |
| % of the labour force whose status is undetermined (not studying or working, not officially unemployed nor on disability pension. nor on childcare vacation) | 14.2 (Järva 7.0; Hiiu 9.4; Viljandi 18.5; Lääne-Viru 20.0) |
| Persons of working age who are on disability pension (%) | 4.4 |
| Persons of working age who are on childcare vacation (%) % | 4.0 |
Table 8-A11
Opinions about Activities and Policies for the Development of Rural Life
| Activity tendencies, principles | Measured average appraisal (* | Coefficient of variation (%) | Defined attitude | Not defined or neutral attitude (%) | The character of the majority attitude (** | |
| “for“ (%) | “against“ (%) | |||||
| 1. Construction and maintenance of electric lines, communications and roads | 4,34 | 22 | 91 | 1 | 8 | U |
| 2. Estonian food market protection from West producers | 4,27 | 32 | 79 | 4 | 17 | U |
| 3. Renewal and replacement of technology and machinery | 4,21 | 29 | 83 | 0 | 17 | U |
| 4. Preferential opportunities to local entrepreneurs | 4.15 | 30 | 80 | 2 | 19 | U |
| 5. Protection the rural producers interests chamber | 4.07 | 38 | 74 | 2 | 24 | U |
| 6. Villages promotion in borderlands, the activities of settlement | 4.00 | 35 | 73 | 2 | 25 | U |
| 7. Protection of the working people's interests. reinforcement of trade unions | 3.88 | 38 | 64 | 3 | 33 | D |
| 8. Tax facilities for entrepreneurs or tax exemptions | 3.83 | 41 | 65 | 10 | 25 | Dv |
| 9. Establishing contacts with the Russian market | 3.82 | 44 | 60 | 3 | 37 | D |
| 10. Education and advisory system for entrepreneurs | 3.71 | 44 | 58 | 3 | 39 | Di |
| 11. More attention to problems in former collective farms | 3.70 | 36 | 60 | 10 | 30 | Dv |
| 12. Creation of attractions for people and entrepreneurs from outside | 3.70 | 39 | 60 | 13 | 27 | Dv |
| 13. Founding local savings and loan cooperatives | 3.57 | 52 | 47 | 6 | 47 | di |
| 14. Support for scientific research and its applications | 3.41 | 52 | 39 | 6 | 55 | dI |
| 15. Incentives for foreign capital and entrepreneurs | 3.41 | 46 | 44 | 17 | 39 | div |
| 16. Restoring peasants farms to 1939 boundaries | 3.40 | 46 | 41 | 14 | 45 | div |
| 17. Reducing the owners circle in cooperatives or elsewhere | 3.33 | 56 | 35 | 10 | 55 | dIv |
| 18. Attention to mass production | 3.33 | 46 | 43 | 24 | 33 | pv |
| 19. Accession to Europe Union as quick as possible | 2.98 | 52 | 18 | 24 | 58 | pIV |
| 20. Re-election of the former village council staff | 2.85 | 54 | 6 | 23 | 70 | dIV |
| 21. Overall average | 3.70 | 56 | 9 | 35 | ||
