» Areas of activity and departments

• compiling and developing national curricula for general and vocational education;
• evaluating the curricula of educational institutions, providing consultation in the curriculum development process;
• evaluating conformity of textbooks to the national curriculum;
• external evaluation of study results (national standardized tests, basic school final examinations, national external school leaving examinations);
• organizing the Estonian language proficiency examinations and examinations on the Estonian Constitution and Citizenship Act;
• Application of ESF Projects “Developing an Educational Counselling System”, “Preparation of Study Materials for Students with Special Educational Needs”, „Raising the Qualifications of General Education Teachers“, „Improving the Quality of Education through an Internal Evaluation System for Use in Educational Institutions, an Academic Performance-Based External Evaluation System“, „Substantive Development of Vocational Education 2008-2013“ .
  
  

• organises the setting of national standardized tests, basic school final examinations and national external school leaving examinations; external marking of the national school leaving examination papers, statistical processing and analysis of the results;
• evaluates conformity of textbooks to the national curriculum;
• organises compilation of methodological and other resource materials  supporting the implementation of the national curriculum;
• evaluates curricula of school providing general education; provides consultation on the school curricula;
• prepares drafts versions of the legal acts related to the tasks of the department and publications.

The Language Department:

• organises the setting of the national standardized tests, basic school final examinations and national external school leaving examinations in Estonian as a second language, English, French, German and Russian, external marking of the national school leaving examination papers and analysis of the results;
• evaluates conformity of textbooks to the national curriculum;
• evaluates the foreign language syllabuses in the schools’ curricula;
• organises the setting  of proficiency examinations in Estonian as a second language, marking of the papers and analysis of the results.

• sets the examination papers on the Estonian Constitution and the Citizenship Act, administrates the examinations and organises marking of the examination papers;
• makes layouts and copies of the national standardised tests and examination materials;
• organises administration of the national standardised tests, basic school final examinations, national external school leaving examinations and the Estonian language proficiency examinations;
• organises the data entry of the test and examination results;
• issues certificates of the national external school leaving examinations, the Estonian language proficiency examinations and examinations on the Estonian Constitution and the Citizenship Act;
• organises compensation of tuition paid for the Estonian language study for applicants for the citizenship.

The Vocational Education Department:

• organises compiling and developing of the national curricula for vocational education institutions;
• organises compilation of methodological and other resource materials supporting the implementation of the national curricula;
• organises evaluation of study materials;
• makes proposals to the Ministry of Education and Research regarding legal acts pertaining to implementation of the national curricula;
• evaluates curricula of institutions providing vocational education, provides consultation to the institutions on curricula issues;
• makes proposals regarding in-service training for teachers in vocational education.

• takes part in developing programmes financed from European Union Structural Funds;
• organises administration and management of programmes as required;
• coordinates programme-related activities of  departments.

• provides services to departments in administrative, IT and personnel matters;
• organises customer service and archive work;
• designs and manages the institution’s working environment.