A week-long peer learning visit across Latvia and Estonia brought together education policymakers from Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine to explore what school network optimisation can look like when rooted in equity, efficiency, and evidence-based decision making.
Hosted under the EU-funded "Supporting Education Reforms and Skills in the Eastern Partnership" programme, the event showed how strategic resource allocation, meaningful community engagement, and long-term political vision can deliver impactful education reform.
Over the course of the week, participants visited 11 different educational institutions—ranging from kindergartens to universities, and covering various types of upper secondary schools, including gymnasiums and technical institutions—offering a comprehensive view of how optimisation is implemented across education levels.
"There's no one-size-fits-all recipe for reform, but you can certainly find inspiration," said Christophe Masson (DG ENEST, European Commission). "Latvia and Estonia have shown how education systems can evolve from a planned to a market economy within two decades, and with strong results."
Indeed, Latvia’s transformation of VET hinged on EU funds, strong governance and inter-municipality clusters. Estonia's success drew on municipal autonomy, teacher training, and digital tools.
"This programme is just a first step," said Masson. "We want to give your Ministries the evidence they need to plan reforms that match your realities."
Reform with (and not against) communities
The visit kicked off in Riga with high-level panels and field visits. Kristīne Niedre-Lathere, Deputy State Secretary for General Education and State Language Policy in Latvia, reminded delegates that optimisation is about much more than closure: "It’s a tool to fight segregation and to promote safe, high-quality education for every pupil and teacher."
Ramona Urtāne, Latvia’s School Network Optimisation Expert, insisted that reform must be human. "Accept the depopulation reality. Don’t hide behind consultants. Own the problem publicly. People trust leadership, not just logic."
Latvian vocational education expert and former Minister of Education Jānis Gaigals emphasised clear political vision: "Financial mechanisms matter. If you have two owners—state and local—they’ll clash. You need one concept, national leadership, and targeted funding," he said.
"We also understand the challenges Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine are facing—because we faced the same ones before joining the EU in 2004. It took a long time and required significant effort to implement the necessary changes. By learning from our success stories, as well as our setbacks, they can make this journey a bit easier”, Gaigals added.
In Ogre, site visits to newly merged schools illustrated how governance reforms, modern infrastructure, and inclusive access models have transformed Latvia’s education offer. Local leaders highlighted how a multi-year consultation process enabled community buy-in, even in areas with emotionally charged ties to long-standing institutions.
Uniquely, Ogre defies Latvia’s dominant trend of rural depopulation and migration to Riga: this town of 23,000 has seen a steady inflow of families leaving the capital in search of nature, quieter living, and strong community-based services—schools being a key part of that attraction.
From crisis to coordinated actions
Eastern Partnership representatives recognised echoes of their own challenges throughout the programme, with some participants noting that “by looking at others’ experiences, you also gain a clearer understanding of your own reality and the challenges within your country.”
Armenia, for example, is undergoing a school merging process while experimenting with shared facilities and community transport, and faces resistance in smaller villages, similarly to Georgia.
"We saw how strategic investment in construction and equipment enables quality education," said Tamara Sargsyan, Head of General Education at Armenia’s Ministry of Education. "We want to work towards greater involvement of municipalities in the decision-making process. In Armenia, everything is managed at the State level, which is one of the reasons the reforms face more resistance."
Ukraine, grappling with the disruptions of Russia's war of aggression, is working to embed school network optimisation into the broader framework of its New Ukrainian School reform. “This event gave us the opportunity to connect with Estonian partners and compare digitalisation processes, which was valuable in assessing our own strategies,” said Andrii Lytvinchuk, Acting Director of the Institute of Educational Analytics.
Lytvinchuk stressed the importance of peer learning not only between the EU and Eastern Partnership countries, but also within the region itself. “Of course, Ukraine is a much larger country—with over 13,000 educational institutions and 4 million students—but when it comes to governance models and implementation methods, the approaches we’ve seen here are quite adaptable to our context. Learning from the Baltic (and other EU) experience helps us rationalise reforms and accelerate our EU integration path by understanding what has worked—and what hasn’t.”
In Georgia, a new pilot merges four rural schools under one legal entity to maintain community links while streamlining governance, while Moldova is looking to multifunctional model schools and shared resource models to boost quality in under-served areas.
Estonia: lifelong learning from kindergarten
In Estonia, delegates learned how consistent investment in education—especially in early years and vocational training—has become a national strategy.
"The roots of our success are in kindergartens," said Liisa Ojaveer of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research. "Creative thinking, safety, and teacher autonomy form the basis of our PISA results."
Estonia ranked first globally in Maths and Science and second in Reading in the 2022 PISA assessment.
At the Rakett69 Science Studio, visitors saw how inclusive pedagogy and STEM engagement begin early and carry through to lifelong learning. Rakett69, a spin-off of a popular Estonian science TV show, functions as a national STEM hub combining fun, competition, and skill development.
At the University of Tartu, presenters from the Ministry of Education and Research outlined Estonia’s education development plan, built around a dual governance model: municipalities oversee primary education, while the State takes charge of upper secondary schools. This approach is part of a broader strategy to ensure inclusive, high-quality education across all regions.
In the seaside town of Haapsalu and in the Saue Municipality (in the outskirts of the Estonian capital), municipal leaders described how structural reforms were carried out with minimal resistance thanks to clear communication within the community and long-term planning.
Officials were clear that school network optimisation does not mean closing schools. Instead, it aims to rationalise resource allocation, modernise learning environments, and enhance teaching quality. In Estonia, education is a political priority at the local level, with some municipalities dedicating over 50% of their budgets to education, underscoring its strategic importance in both governance and community development.
"In Estonia, a school is more than a building. It’s a hub, a signal that a village is alive," Ojaveer added. "But quality comes first. A gymnasium with only 20 students and 2 teachers isn’t sustainable."
What comes next?
As the event wrapped up in Tallinn, the focus shifted to implementation. The ETF confirmed that Armenia and Moldova—following the presentation of their Rapid Education Diagnostic (RED) assessments to their respective Ministries—will receive tailored capacity needs assessments. Armenia will also undergo a comprehensive joint sector review of its education system.
Meanwhile, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine are set to benefit from targeted capacity-building support, with Ukraine also engaging in further analytical work to prepare for its upcoming RED assessment.
"The leverage in Latvia and Estonia was funding," said ETF’s Timo Kuusela. "But money alone doesn’t cut it. It’s about how you use it, and how you engage people along the way: communication within the community is key to avoiding top-down approach and local resistance.”
Among the thematic priorities for future peer learning identified by participants were resource mobilisation strategies, education funding formulas, and school autonomy frameworks, to be further explored in follow-ups before July.
The shared message of the week was clear: peer learning can drive real policy change and foster a deeper understanding of one’s own context. As delegates boarded flights back to Yerevan, Tbilisi, Chisinau, and Kyiv, they took with them more than just reports and reflections—they carried home blueprints for education reform and resource optimisation, grounded in the Baltic experience and strengthened through Eastern Partnership collaboration.
The journey doesn’t end here. While the first phase of the EU’s €2.5 million flagship regional education programme is set to conclude in 2026, both participants and organisers reaffirmed that the cooperation will continue beyond that date. Sustaining the policy dialogue, deepening technical exchange, and supporting real change where it matters most: in communities, schools and classrooms.
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