Shifting the Start of the School Day Later Causes Significant Costs for Municipalities

According to the Ministry of Education's plan, the school day should start at 9 AM from autumn, but this seemingly small change requires significant additional costs according to the Public Transport Centre. The same regulation also places obligations on local municipalities for organizing school transport that they may not be able to fulfill. Andres Laisk, the mayor of Saue municipality, says this is over-regulation and an interference in the autonomy of the community.

The draft regulation pushing the start of the school day to 9 AM also includes a point obligating the local municipality to organize a child's journey to school if, outside a settlement, the school route passes through potentially hazardous terrain or if the child has to walk along a road where the speed limit exceeds 50 km/h. School bus stops must meet the requirements of a regular stop, meaning that in the case of narrow roads, the local government must build a separate stopping point.

"This could lead to us having to provide a service where the school bus starts operating door-to-door, and the bus stop must meet requirements that we cannot implement on private land anywhere," said Andres Laisk, the mayor of Saue municipality.

According to Andrus Nilisk, the head of the North Estonia Public Transport Centre, about a quarter of bus stops in Estonia are such that the bus stop sign is on the roadside, but the necessary hard surface is missing. Reconstructing the stops could cost between €50,000 and €100,000 and take at least a year, he said.

"There is quite a lot of subjectivity in this regulation, such as 'sufficient' and 'safe' – these terms are actually undefined, and if we now have to respond to potentially some resident's opinion that it is not sufficient or safe, then according to the text of this regulation, we are in trouble," Laisk said.

The new provision in the regulation establishing the start of the school day at 9 AM will mean significant changes to the county bus schedules, according to the head of the North Estonia Public Transport Centre.

"We actually looked a bit within our organization at how many extra kilometers would be needed – let's say roughly 700,000 extra kilometers, which means a million euros. This is not feasible by September 1st because the buses and the bus drivers are not available," said Andrus Nilisk.

Kuusalu municipality prepared for the later start of the school day at the local secondary school for the entire previous academic year, and it was a complex logistical task.

"When making our plans, we take into account neighboring municipalities, our own municipality's schools, and public transport lines, so any small change actually brings about a rather large change in the entire logistics circuit," said Terje Kraanvelt, the mayor of Kuusalu municipality.

According to the Ministry of Education, the new regulation does not obligate starting the school day at 9 AM or necessarily launching new bus routes.

"Currently, the questions from local municipalities have largely arisen from the fact that they have not yet started discussing among themselves what we can do together in this municipality. Perhaps the need for a school bus is not as great at all if, for example, we reach an agreement with public transport. Perhaps the need for public transport and school buses is not as great at all if, in small communities, parents agree among themselves on how the children will get to school," described Marjeta Venno, head of the curriculum department at the Ministry of Education, regarding the possibilities.

The Ministry of Education will not cover the additional costs of school transport.

"I argue that this is a matter of local autonomy; it is not possible to prescribe requirements at the legal level with such detail that must be solved in the local community," added Venno.

Avaldatud 29/04/2025