Tiina Annus, Head of Analyses Division, Ministry of Education and Research, Estonia

Tiina Annus is the Head of Analyses Division in Estonian Ministry of Education and Research since 2006.  The analyses division provides analyses of education systems for strategic decision-making and coordinates educational research. To monitor the education system analyses division has been working on the system of relevant indicators. The field of statistics and analyses needs lot of precise knowledge and understandings of information and education systems. Analyses supporting strategic decisions are more and more common nowadays in Estonia.

Tiina Annus has been working on education topics over the last 12 years. The network of National Observatories supported by European Training Foundation was established in 1996  to monitor the reforms of VET systems during the pre-accession period before joining the European Union. Tiina worked at the Estonian National Observatory which supported the implementation of reform by analyses, studies and statistics available at that time. It was new to study Vocational Education in context of labour market. One of the important directions was to start with sectoral studies –forestry, metalwork and information technology were the first ones.

From 2002 Tiina worked  for 4 years in the Policy Studies Center PRAXIS. Praxis conducted in depth analyses of school networks – both vocational education and general education. Using GIS solutions it was more explicit to understand where the bottle necks were. At that time more work was done jointly with Tartu University in the field of skills anticipation – for ministry of Education and Research and for Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Besides the work as an analyst Tiina has been involved in different international projects. Her favorite task has been to promote the observatory function in MEDA countries. She has also introduced the Estonian Education Information System and work of analyses division in Georgian Ministry of Education.