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The President of the Republic at the Assembly Hall of the Estonian University of Agriculturein Tartu, on March 7, 200207.03.2002
Dear Rector,
dear Professors,
students,
ladies and gentlemen!
Addressing this audience today, I cannot ignore the idea that I have expressed also in my earlier public appearances. I mean the idea of the necessity to ensure the sustainable development of Estonia by means of the continuity across generations and enhancing the quality of life. The social policy decisions we make in this country must be carried by the need to guarantee for everyone the possibility of self-esteem. Independently of age, origins, or profession, all the people inhabiting our country should be able to feel that they are needed here.
To ensure the conditions of existence for the people of Estonia and the state of Estonia - this is and will be our top priority. With equal conviction we can assure that this aspiration can only be realised if the Estonian society is strong and can flexibly respond to the developments of the globalising world.
Let us ask, then, which society is strong and flexible? An educated, tolerant nation calmly looking into future, living in the ancient land of their ancestors and in their own state obviously has good premises for that. The Estonian state can only rest on Estonian shoulders. Considering the reality and trends of the present day, we must, unfortunately, also speak of the sad demographic situation, and of the programmes for increasing the birth rate. Existential fears and the threat to become extinct in our own ancient habitat would not ensure the abovementioned strength to our society.
Speaking of the coming generations, it is impossible not to mention education. Almost everything in the modern world begins with and depends on education - living, work and employment, present and future. In the global society racing on in enormous strides, only the individuals, peoples and states which can ensure their growing generations with excellent modern education can be successful. And I do not mean only children. To be successful, to keep up with life, also the middle-aged and elderly generations must receive the necessary additional training.
Dear fellow thinkers!
Let me repeat a thought that I have iterated before. This is from the times of our national awakening, from Jakob Hurt, who has said that if greatness in power or numbers must remain beyond our reach, let us attain greatness in spirit. Thus, we have once again underlined the importance of education in a small country, where not the resources created by man or nature, but man itself is the most valuable asset.
Regrettably, we have not always and not everywhere been able to spare this most valuable asset of ours. Partly, this is an objective inevitability, but partly - outrageous neglect. Inevitably, we have had to pay for the possibility to live in an independent country. To some extent, the price we have paid is reflected in the health of our people, in the feeling of security, in the birth rate. But there is no excuse for the lack of considerate care for human beings.
Likewise, we must admit that we have had to pay in the field of education. There is a lack of good teachers in Estonia, and the average age of university professors approaches the threshold of retirement. Yet this seems an inevitability in the situation where the society values the work of teachers many times less than that of banker's politician's or sales manager's. As a result, our schools, like the rest of Estonia, are out of balance. As a seafaring nation, we could say - this is a heel. The school has a heel towards the female sex. There are few men in schools, and the dropouts are mostly boys; also teaching programmes and arrangements often have a focus on the female sex. The talents and mental potential of the males often remain unutilised.
As the data from the Ministry of Education corroborate, less than 800 children discontinued their studies in main schools in the academic year 1993/94. But last year, this number was already approaching one thousand. Three quarters of these children were male. We do not know what became of those children, how many of them continued their studies later and still acquired their main education. Yet it is known that in Estonia, approximately 5,000 children of school age have given up the thought of continuing their education. This is an irreparable damage to the society, meaning that these people will have limited opportunities for development, and that some values will forever remain uncreated.
We discussed these worrying tendencies with the Minister of Education at the beginning of this week. We both agreed that the state is responsible for the fate of those children. The failure to educate nearly a thousand young people is too great a loss for the society to go unnoticed. The Minister and I also agreed that it would be considerably less costly for the society to open municipal or state-owned boarding schools in all counties, so that the children who lack the support from their own family, would be able to continue their studies.
Dear listeners!
Let me also speak briefly of the content and trends of education, and do this with a figurative retrospective to my own childhood. Before going to school, I took care of the cattle, about in the age of seven, I was permitted to start learning how to mow with a scythe, at the age of nine, I was allowed to plough and harrow with a horse, and still later on, to try the work of a blacksmith. Besides making work my second nature since early childhood, this also shows the genuine peasant wisdom of my parents - there was a time and a way to teach each new skill to the child. And this also showed them the talents and the inclinations of the child.
Masters, journeymen and apprentices are necessary today, like they were in the past. But our current system of education does not value the training of skilful craftsmen. Already in main school we start to guide the pupils towards higher education, disregarding the children with dexterity of hand and precision of the eye. And yet, these children would perhaps be happier as skilful carpenters or gardeners than when trying at all costs to adapt themselves to the models of the society that only recognises those who are accepted to elite secondary schools in big cities and from there, to university.
Also here, we can use the data from the Ministry of Education corroborating that in the last ten years, the acceptance to vocational training institutions of pupils with main education, or those that have not finished main school, has in last ten years decreased by another magic thousand. Only a quarter of the main school graduates continues their education in vocational training institutions. Thus, considering also the annual decrease of the number of children, the number of skilled craftsmen is constantly diminishing. The employers complain about the lack of skilled workers, and their attempts to employ workers from outside Estonia are therefore not groundless. As in many other areas of life, we should also here try to reach an agreement in the society, which would enable the employers to a certain extent to finance vocational training so as to provide themselves with qualified employees at for their own enterprise.
If we wish to maintain or even speed up the current pace of development of Estonian economy, it is inevitable that a solution should be found to the above problem. Of course, we can alleviate the problem by means of state support to the additional training and re-training programmes, but on a wider scale, this is not a substitute for systematic education.
Our agricultural education - which has great traditions - and the Estonian Agricultural University, its sovereign centre, which last year celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, are undoubtedly part of academic education. In the earlier Estonian Agricultural Academy, today's Estonian Agricultural University, altogether more than 20,000 people have acquired agricultural education. This school has given thousands of agronomists, veterinarians, forestry experts, engineers and economists to the rural life in Estonia. In addition to their professional skills, these people have, throughout decades, been the props of the spiritual culture of the rural areas, and the real salt of the earth.
Estonian Agricultural University has developed and changed according to the needs of the society. Other scientific and research institutions, such as the Institute of Experimental Biology, Institute of Environment Protection, Institute of Cattle Breeding, Forestry Research Institute, the Polli Horticultural Institute, the Institute of Zoology and Botany, and the Plant Biotechnology Research Centre EVIKA, have been united to the University. This has considerably broadened the study and research competence of the EAU.
With the research competence, also new specialities, connected to the sustainable use of natural resources and the quality of life of the people were added to the traditional specialities of plant and animal breeding and forestry.
But unfortunately, in recent years, this temple of agricultural education and research has been unable to dedicate itself fully to its main tasks. The reason is that in the years 2000-2001, the uniting of the Agricultural University to Tartu University was still on the agenda. The Commission for Restructuring the Tartu Network of Higher Education Institutions, formed with the Order of the Minister of Education from November 10, 2000, had the task to submit their proposals on the forms, ways and means, and time schedules for the institutional integration of two universities and the Tartu College of Aviation to the Minister of Education.
Fortunately, there were enough bright minds and influential voices to support the preservation of the EAU as an independent institution and to ensure the future development of our agricultural education and science. On the aforementioned recent meeting with the Minister of Education, we also touched upon this issue. I was glad to hear that Minister Rand also supports the independent future existence of the Agricultural University, and also the maintaining and even increasing of the state demand of agricultural education.
This is inevitable, because in case of the opposite, the insufficient training of university-level agriculture specialists in Estonia might prove to be a grave national problem. This is especially true for food safety and veterinary checking, but also in other areas. Additional means are necessary to bring the study programmes and training in the field of veterinary medicine to accordance with the European requirements. So far, the Agricultural University does not have clinics or the technical equipment meeting the requirements of Europe for ensuring the scheduled accrediting XX of the studies of veterinary medicine for the year 2004. Neither has the state financing so far taken into account the actual costs of study bases, experimental cowsheds, or field experiments - this will be an obstacle for high-standard training.
As the young people studying in the Agricultural University mostly come from rural areas, and will after graduation also seek to work in the country, the activities of the university could also be viewed in regional policy context. The more educated young people settle in the country, start a family and build a home there, the more certain it is that after some time, we can already talk about evenly developed and well maintained Estonia. Thus, we can once again emphasise the importance of human capital. If there were no educated people in the country, also the existing social infrastructure would soon dilapidate.
Dear listeners!
In recent years, we have sometimes too light-heartedly given our preference to mediation and contracting, abandoning lasting experience and skills. And also people active in traditional branches of the economy, or those that have not responded fast enough to the changed demands. Here, I above all mean agriculture and elderly rural population.
Due to abrupt changes in agricultural policy at the beginning of the 1990s, the employment in the agricultural sector has decreased from 13 to 5 per cent within the last ten years. Also the proportion of the added value of agricultural products in the gross domestic product decreased considerably, and the structure of agricultural enterprises changed. Today, there are 11,700 manufacturing farms and 680 agricultural enterprises in Estonia.
In connection with radical structural changes and new economic space, nearly one quarter of arable land has fallen out of use. When comparing the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, we can see that within last ten years, agricultural production has decreased most of all in Bulgaria and Estonia - by more than a half. The regression has been smallest in Slovenia and Poland. The greatest decrease in cattle breeding - by nearly two thirds - has occurred in Latvia and in Estonia, the smallest in Slovenia and Romania.
We can make similar comparisons also in the average rates of duties. Most of the Central and East European countries have introduced high customs duties on agricultural products: for example, in 1997, Poland's average was 19.5%, and Hungary's 22%, in Latvia and Lithuania, the average was above 15%. In addition, those countries also applied quota or quota with customs duties to agricultural products. Estonia, as we know, has practically not protected her market, and this has also been reflected in the diminishing of our own production volumes and negative trade balance. Whereas the trade balance of Hungary has a surplus just because of high customs duties and quota.
And yet, we also have some good news among the bad. According to the OECD evaluation, the structure of agriculture in Estonia is relatively better, and the structure of dairy cattle is especially favourable. The success of our cattle-breeders and scientists in increasing the productivity and improving the genetic potential of our cattle are certainly worthy of recognition.
In cattle breeding, the breeding aims have changed, so that now bulls of high breeding value are used. In the so-called "world top 10" the Estonian Holstein bull was on the 7th place. The productivity of cows, which decreased from 4,500 kilos to 3,750 kilos in the years 1990-1994, increased to 5,051 kilos, in Järva County even to 6,015 kilos by the year 2001. Thus, in the near future, the goal of 8,000 - 10,000 kilos per cow is certainly not beyond our reach.
In co-operation with German scientists, the breeding system has been changed also in the field of pig breeding. If at the beginning of the 1990s, the average lean meat content in body composition was 50-52%, then by last year, it had increased to 50-60%. With these results, we are approaching the level of the best farms of Europe.
Using the databases of the best breeding firms of the world, poultry breeding has in ten years accomplished the increase of average egg production per hen from 245 eggs annually to the annual average of 320 eggs. The twenty-four-hour period weight gain of broilers has increased from 25-27 grams to 50-54 grams.
Proceeding from such a strong basis, Estonian agricultural policy could afford to set the improvement of quality of production as the country's goal since the middle of the 1990s. At the same time, we were set on the course of acceding to the European Union, and the adaptation of production to the European requirements begun.
Today we are, figuratively speaking, on our way to the finish as concerns the accession negotiations with the European Union. It is not impossible for us to close all the discussion subjects by the end of this year. At the same time, the direct aid and production quota offered to the candidate countries by the EU have become an issue of dispute.
To make up for lower direct grants, the European Union has promised higher grants for small-scale farmers and rural life when compared to the member states. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the grants promised to us in relation to value added, most generally speaking, are 31%, whereas the average of Europe is 33% and Estonia's level today is 6%. When expressed in the Euros per full-time agricultural worker annually, our grant would be 2,204 Euros, where as the EU average is 5,282 Euros.
The Minister of Agriculture of the Baltic States, meeting in Riga on February 28, assumed a position that the promised direct grants do not form a firm foundation for the further efficient restructuring of the agricultural sector of the Baltic States, and must therefore be reviewed. According to the Ministers' evaluation, also the compared production periods need to be reviewed for specification, taking into consideration the presumable domestic consumption upon accession as well as the role of agriculture in the preservation of traditional landscape.
The dairy quota offered to Estonia by the European Commission is 560,000 tons. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the quota will include the production marketed for human consumption, but not the domestic demand or the amount of milk not meeting the requirements that will be sold to industries and used for powder production. In 1995, we produced 221,400 tons and last year 448,000 tons of milk meeting the European quota.
At the same time, the term for the accrediting of dairy farms and application of the hygiene requirements are drawing near. Not everybody will be able to meet the requirements. According to the Veterinary and Food Administration, 80% of the dairy farms with more than 100 cows can bring their conditions to accordance with the hygiene requirements by July 1. Yet of the farms with up to 10 cows, only one fifth will accomplish this. According to forecasts, a total of 70% of dairy farms may meet the requirements in time. For the rest, this does not mean automatic closing down, especially if it is possible to use the pre-accession aid of the European Union.
Dear listeners!
Returning now to vocational training, it must be admitted that in recent years, several basic documents for the restructuring of education have been drafted, but unfortunately, the parts of these documents related to agriculture remain superficial both in content and in geography.
First, we must admit that we are missing a long-term, strategic development plan of education that would give a sense of security to the schools, the teachers and the professors, and also to families who are planning the future of their children. Yet we should also admit that there are big gaps in the legal acts regulating the field of education. It is doubtful whether it would be justified to draw up a separate legal act for each different school type, even if the basic education act is old-fashioned and too narrow.
The development plan of agricultural education was drawn up by the end of last year, on the initiative of the Ministry of Agriculture. The plan gives a brief review of the current situation of agricultural education, its strong and weak points, and the opportunities and threats proceeding from external circumstances. The plan also contains a vision of the development of agricultural education and strategic goals, as well as the development components necessary to achieve those goals and results, the action plan for accomplishing the goals, and the main concepts belonging to the field of vocational training. At the moment, the development plan has been submitted to the Ministry of Education for approval.
Undoubtedly, the co-operation between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture should be highlighted at this point. This co-operation has been established in the co-operation protocol for the years 2001-2004, which emphasises common efforts in the field of vocational and higher education and science. The Protocol also establishes the continuation of the co-operation in proposing the state demand for vocational secondary education and higher education.
To ensure that there will be a new generation of agricultural producers, a proposal has been made for the development of regional training centres with modern equipment. There, practical training for both students and agricultural manufacturers could be arranged; the centres would also organise the proliferation of information on new technologies, as well as arrange one-day courses, and spread fresh information, co-operate with research institutions and offer consultations.
Proceeding from the number of farmsteads and the people working there, approximately 500 students, or even 1,000, when considering the arable areas, should be admitted to educational institutions annually in order to ensure the new generation of agricultural producers. Yet at the present time, the annual number of students admitted is 300, of which one third is constituted by students with special needs.
Undoubtedly, the status of agriculture as a whole, as well as the status of agricultural education in our country, must be improved. The number of students accepted in recent years can no longer provide us with a new generation of agricultural producers. At the moment, approximately 500 students altogether are studying all specialities related to agriculture. The introduction of scholarships or special advantages to support the studies could increase the number of students and thus also ensure the future of rural life in Estonia.
It is in our power to make the decisions concerning the existence of our nation. Knowing our roots, maintaining our continuity and valuing of education are certainly not unimportant in making existential decisions.
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