PISA test 2022 results: Estonia’s education is the best in Europe

December 5, 2023

The PISA 2022 educational survey published today shows that the knowledge and skills of Estonian 15-year-olds are at the absolute top in Europe and the top eight in the world, with the leading countries in Asia. Among European countries, Estonia ranks 1st-2nd in mathematics with Switzerland, 1st in science and 1st-2nd in reading with Ireland.

The Minister of Education and Research, Kristina Kallas, said that compared to other countries, Estonian results are characterised by the fact that many Estonian children achieve a baseline level of proficiency in mathematics. “This means that our teachers pay a lot of attention to all children equally in the class, and we achieve the top results in the world not only thanks to the most capable children but with the above-average results of all children. The professional skills of Estonian teachers are a key here,” said the minister.

All over the world, students’ results have fallen compared to the results of PISA 2018. Still, Estonian students’ results fell less than others, showing that Estonia managed to organise education well during the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to digital tools and a growth mindset. “The results affirm the effectiveness and equity of Estonia’s education system, showing that academic achievement in the country remains largely independent of socioeconomic backgrounds,” Kallas said.

A total of 690,000 students from 81 countries or economic regions took the test in the spring of 2022. In Estonia, 6,392 students from 196 schools took the test. The PISA test consisted of tasks in mathematics, functional reading, science and creative thinking, and this time the emphasis was on mathematics. Students and school heads also completed questionnaires, which have been used to analyse and interpret the test results.

Estonian students are skilled, safe and satisfied

The study showed that in addition to having excellent knowledge and skills, Estonian students are mostly satisfied with their lives. The assessment of their life satisfaction (average 6.91 points on a 10-point scale) is higher than the OECD average (6.75), similar to Sweden (6.91) and slightly lower than Finland (7.41). Boys are more satisfied with their life than girls.

Estonian children also believe that their results are in their own hands. Similarly to the PISA 2018, we rank first in comparing countries regarding growth mindset. This means students believe they can improve their intelligence and are willing to put effort into their development to secure a better future.

In addition, children in Estonia feel safe at school. Students’ sense of security is higher than average in OECD countries because of the safer way to school. The feeling of safety in the classroom and other areas of the school is similar to the OECD average. The Estonian basic education system supports students to become self-directed learners. Estonia is among the countries where seven out of ten students feel ready for self-directed learning.

Estonia: a beacon of educational innovation

Estonia’s commitment to education is evident in its society and its influence on the global stage. The country’s educational brand, Education Estonia, showcases Estonia’s expertise, experiences, and smart solutions in education, further strengthening its international reputation.

Digital innovation remains a cornerstone of Estonian education, with schools utilising advanced technology to prepare students for a digital future. Yet, the balance between digital and traditional learning methods ensures a comprehensive and adaptable educational environment. The country also takes care of some other issues, such as safety. The sense of security is higher than on average in OECD countries for Estonian students.

All in all, according to PISA estimates, Estonia’s approach to education is characterised by its inclusivity and fairness, ensuring equal access to quality education regardless of background. The country’s vocational training, higher education, and adult education systems are noted for their quality, flexibility, and alignment with modern industry needs.

There is also an interesting parallel between the PISA results and Estonia’s performance as a startup nation with most startups and unicorns per capita. Both phenomena reflect a shared let’s-do-it mindset. The PISA test outcomes reveal that Estonian students embrace a progressive mindset, demonstrating a belief in their ability to shape the future. They are motivated to go the extra mile to enhance their intelligence and capabilities.

For more information about the results of PISA 2022, please visit the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research’s website.

Resouce: e-estonia

The new Health Portal has replaced Digilugu

December 13, 2023

The Estonian Health Insurance Fund and the Health and Welfare Information Systems Centre (TEHIK) have launched the new Health Portal at www.terviseportaal.ee, replacing the current Patient Portal www.digilugu.ee.

Digilugu closed in parallel with the launch of the Health Portal. When a person goes to www.digilugu.ee out of habit, they will automatically be redirected to the Health Portal page.

‘As the patient portal is now over 15 years old and is somewhat lagging behind technologically, the creation of a new portal is necessary because access to health data needs to keep up with the times,’ said Kady Adamson, Project Manager for the Health Portal at the Health and Welfare Information Systems Centre.

According to Evgeni Nikolaevski, Product Manager of the Health Portal at the Estonian Health Insurance Fund, the Health Portal provides convenient and user-friendly access to health data and is a gateway to health services.

‘In the first phase, the Health Portal will offer people the health-related services available on the old Patient Portal. Thanks to the new portal, user convenience will be improved, meaning that people will be able to access health information more conveniently and different topics will be categorised more logically,’ said the product manager of the Health Portal.

Before logging in to the Health Portal, you will be presented with a front page featuring health promotion content that will include various evidence-based health information. When you enter the Health Portal, you will first see the ‘My Dashboard’ view, which displays your upcoming appointments, outstanding prescriptions, examinations, tests, appointments in the last six months, and vaccination recommendations. As a new feature, people will have access to ‘My Health History’, allowing them to filter in detail information on appointments, tests, examinations, vaccinations, and information related to emergency medical care, hospitalisation, or surgeries. There are also a number of smaller additions to services.

In the near future, in addition to the health declaration and the possibility to fill in statements of intention, it is planned to add the possibility to fill in health information about yourself and your loved ones and to complete health assessment questionnaires before appointments. In addition to the above, the national eBooking system will become part of the Health Portal in 2024 and no longer be a separate environment. This will make it easier for patients to book appointments or change and cancel these appointments.

Moreover, new IT solutions will be added to the Health Portal to increase people’s own participation and responsibility in health-related decision-making. ‘One of the features most requested by users is the possibility to receive notifications on things like prescriptions, vaccinations, and doctor’s visits. The service will be added to the Health Portal in 2024, and then, people can set up notifications via text message or email,’ Evgeni Nikolaevski confirmed.

End users from different backgrounds, including visually impaired people, were involved in the development of the Health Portal. ‘We requested feedback and asked people to test the first services. By now, the feedback has been processed and changes have been made accordingly. In addition, during the development, we focused on ensuring that the portal does not need to be replaced in ten years’ time, but can be continuously updated with new and necessary features,’ said Kady Adamson.

People can give feedback on the new Health Portal via the ‘Feedback’ button on the right-hand side of the portal or directly via the TEHIK helpdesk email at abi@tehik.ee. User feedback and comments are extremely important to provide the most convenient and user-friendly environment possible for all people in Estonia.

The development of the Health Portal was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) at a total cost of €1.24 million.

Resouce: e-estonia

Estonia’s Fibenol is transforming the biomaterials industry

December 6, 2023

by Justin Petrone

If there is one thing that Estonia has a lot of, it’s wood. Over half of the country is forested, and timber is a key export. Forestry and wood industry leftovers are often underutilised, though, and one firm, Fibenol, is turning such secondary quality resources into high-value biomaterials.

Fibenol’s products include a hardwood extrusion-based lignin, an organic polymer that the firm has branded as Lignova, and that can be processed into biochemicals, coatings, adhesives, resins, and other materials. The company also offers lignocellulosic sugars, offered as C5 and C6 sugars, that can be used for fermentation into biofuels, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals, as a sustainable alternative for substituting agricultural sugars. Fibenol also makes special microcrystalline cellulose, a nano-material that can be used for barrier films and adhesives.

The firm developed initially within Graanul Invest, a major Estonian wood pellet producer, where there had been ongoing discussions on how to valorise woody biomass better, as the technologies used chiefly were able to turn 50 per cent of such biomass into products.

A year-long search led by Peep Pitk, its R&D manager at the time, wound up in late 2016 when Fibenol’s Sunburst technology was developed. At that time, Graanul Invest took the risk and scaled the technology. In 2018, the nascent firm, dubbed Fibenol, received EU funding to develop a demo plant. Its growth has continued since. As of today, Fibenol employs 50 people, and its plant in Imavere in central Estonia was commissioned in 2023 and is scaling up operations.

“This is a global innovation, enabling the transformation of the chemicals and materials industry,” said Pitk, now Fibenol’s chief development officer. “This is happening in Estonia. I think it’s a story worth telling, a story we should probably be a bit more loud about.”

Chocolate mousse, anyone?

Imavere is on the main highway from Tallinn to Tartu, Estonia’s second-largest city, and it’s a small village that is probably best known as a rest stop for travellers, because of its gas station. But it’s also a major wood production hub. Stora Enso, a Swedish-Finnish paper producer, maintains its sawmill there, the largest in the Baltics, and Granuul Invest is also located there.

This is where Fibenol built its biorefinery, which means that its primary input material, mainly plywood industry residues, is located within close distance. Pitk noted that about half of birch wood is turned into veneer sheets for plywood, while the remaining 50 per cent is often chipped and shipped to Scandinavia. But Fibenol can use that same residue to produce its biomaterials, meaning that the value of our bioresource remains in Estonia. “We can valorize locally also technological wood, the parts of the birch tree that are otherwise exported, and to keep the value here,” said Pitk. Fibenol can also process other species of hardwoods, meaning that the biorefinery model can be expanded globally.

These woody biomasses are converted into biomaterials via what Fibenol calls Sunburst technology. Using heat, pressure, and mechanical power, Fibenol can turn biomasses into a brown slurry that resembles chocolate mousse. It then relies on enzymatic processes to turn the wood sundae into lignin and wood sugars that can then be packaged and sold for use in a variety of industrial purposes.

“That’s where the magic happens,” said Pitk. “What we do today is a starting point for a model for integrated biorefinery.”

From fats and oils to carbon-neutral roads

There are innumerable use cases for Fibenol’s biomaterials. However, one early development partner has been ÄIO, a Tallinn-based food technology company that uses fermentation to produce fats and oils. According to Pitk, ÄIO has been using Fibenol’s sugars to feed its oil-producing microorganisms. “They use their yeasts to ferment the sugars into fat and oils,” Pitk commented.

Petri-Jaan Lahtvee, a cofounder of ÄIO said that the company has been using Fibenol’s C5 and C6 Sugars and has even developed a unique process for fermenting the C5 Sugars. Lahtvee said that ÄIO and Fibenol have been collaborators since Fibenol began producing batches of sugars. .”We were already waiting for their material before it existed,” said Lahtvee.

Fibenol is also positioning its Lignova product as a replacement for fossil chemicals like bitumen, a viscous constituent of petroleum, which means it can produce asphalt and roofing materials. “Let’s say this is the lowest-hanging fruit for us,” said Pitk of this opportunity. Around the company’s plant, Fibenol created a carbon-neutral road this past summer with the help of a road construction company, which replaced 25 per cent of the bitumen with Lignova.

Fibenol also asked the company to use biodiesel instead of regular diesel, and according to TalTech experts’ calculations, this allowed the production of CO2-neutral asphalt. Pitk said this showcased the ability of Fibenol’s products to reduce the environmental impact of fossil resource-based industries.

“It’s not a matter of if we collectively can be more sustainable, it’s a matter of do we want to do it,” said Pitk. He said that producing a carbon-neutral road using Lignova would be about 10 per cent more expensive than surfacing a road using bitumen.

This is the question we are asking today from the local governments or authorities. EU-level solutions are there. “Sustainability, at least in the short term, comes with a price,” Pitk said. “I don’t think 10 per cent is too large an additional premium to make bitumen-based asphalts CO2 neutral,” he said. “I think this is an excellent demonstration of qualitative change.”

Fully digitalised

One of Fibenol’s goals is to develop a model for future biorefineries that can be exported worldwide. To accomplish this, the company integrated digital platforms into its processes at every stage. First, producing Fibenol’s products is designed to be resource and energy-efficient. For each ton of wood processed, Fibenol produces at least 950 kilograms of product, Pitk said.

The plant also relies on biomass-based energy and collects all the water used in the plant, which can be treated in an internal facility. Fibenol’s goal is to recycle at least 70 per cent of the wastewater. “Nobody has asked us to do that at the regulatory level, but we see this as the future, and in 15 years water, water use, and water scarcity will become more of a topic,” he said. “We are building a  biorefinery model for the future.”

Using digital tools via partners who provide it with woody biomass, Fibenol can also track the raw materials it uses.  The material is fully traceable because Fibenol uses woody biomass from certified forests. This allows it to calculate its CO2 footprint better and assess its environmental impact. Pitk noted that while general sustainability claims are popular, some companies claim to be green without providing transparent and traceable data.

“If we want to favour sustainable solutions, then we need to be able to compare the sustainability of different solutions,” said Pitk. “So this is the mindset that we’re advocating in the market. We need a levelled playing field to have a fair game.”

Ramping up

This year, Fibenol’s biorefinery in Imavere became fully operational, and the company plans to ramp up its production process next year. This includes feasibility testing and process optimisation. Beyond those goals, Fibenol intends to double production capacity by 2026.

By 2028, the company aims to have a large-scale plant ready, with approximately 10 times the capacity of its facility today. Due to the modular technology design, the biorefineries can easily be adapted to local limitations and resource availability.

“You have to look decades ahead and consider the sustainable forest management derived woody biomass availability,” remarked Pitk. “And biorefinery design basis needs to be aligned with the local availability of water and based solely on renewable energy,” he said. “You also need to contribute to the local community; you need to deliver the salaries that allow people to live their lives so that it’s all sustainable.”

Fibenol also has 2030 in its sights for different application developments. The company would like to produce 100 per cent forest-based biopolymers that Estonians can use instead of plastics. As Pitk noted, Estonia currently has products based on imported plastic, but by switching to Fibenol’s biopolymers, it could source all of those raw materials in the country. Pitk said that Fibenol’s aim is that by 2030, biopolymers will be produced entirely based on wood sourced from young forests.

“Instead of being importers of polymers, we can become biopolymers producers,” said Pitk. “These can be used here as well for export.”

Resouse: e-estonia