External evaluation of continuing education in Estonia 

That first model, threshold-based assessment, was introduced in 2019 among the training-card partners of the Estonian Unemployment Insurance Fund (Töötukassa), as part of a European Social Fund project on promoting adult education and widening learning opportunities. Its purpose was to establish whether a provider met a defined “threshold” — the minimum quality acceptable under the Adult Education Act and the continuing education standard. It was not a paperwork exercise: rather than checking documents alone, it assessed how the statutory requirements were actually being implemented.

The assessment ran in two stages: first a provider’s website was checked for the information required by law, and only providers that passed advanced to the second stage, in which the curriculum and its delivery were assessed against the Act and the standard. Participation was voluntary, but only those that passed gained access to publicly funded training procurement, and the assessment was deliberately kept affordable for smaller providers. Subject-field and continuing-education experts were involved throughout, and providers that fell short received feedback and a chance to be re-assessed.

The reach was substantial. In all, the model involved 1,022 assessments — covering the websites of 576 providers and the teaching and learning of 103 of them — and HAKA used this work to produce sector-level analyses across fields such as IT skills, entrepreneurship, hairdressing and beauty, and social work. It also had a measurable effect: among providers first rated negatively on their website, around two-thirds went on to correct it and pass, and of those re-assessed on the quality of their teaching and learning, roughly 85 percent passed. This model is no longer in use.

Between 2022 and 2023 HAKA carried out a curriculum group quality assessment among the Unemployment Insurance Fund’s training-card partners, after the Fund invited HAKA to take part as a partner in a programme to improve the quality of labour-market training.

This model set quality requirements higher than the statutory minimum, examining not only a provider’s curricula but the teaching and learning delivered on their basis and its curriculum-development work as a whole. Provision was assessed against the quality principles of the Adult Education Act and the continuing education standard, relevant national and international standards and development trends, and the specific quality criteria set for the assessment. The aim was both to give providers concrete recommendations for improvement and to recognise excellent practice, and providers meeting the requirements in full could be awarded a quality mark.

To take the formal assessment decisions, HAKA established a dedicated continuing education assessment council, and the model was applied to 117 providers before the work concluded.

Its perceived impact was later studied in a master’s thesis, which surveyed 47 of the assessed institutions and found a positive perceived effect on their educational activities — most notably on their curricula and on the accuracy of the information published on their websites — felt similarly across providers regardless of size. The thesis also found that institutions which did not achieve a positive outcome tended to experience the process more negatively, pointing to the value of building more support for providers into the assessment itself.

HAKA’s current model is a curriculum group quality assessment that supports Estonia’s introduction of microcredentials. Under the Adult Education Act, a microcredential is a documented and recognised set of knowledge and skills, acquired through continuing education, that corresponds to the needs of the labour market or society. The framework reflects the 2022 European Council Recommendation on a European approach to micro-credentials for lifelong learning and employability, alongside the European quality assurance standards for higher education (ESG) and the EQAVET reference framework for vocational education. The assessment is mandatory for providers that wish to offer microcredential studies in a curriculum group in which they do not already hold the right to teach. Such a provider must first pass HAKA’s curriculum group quality assessment, applied for through the Estonian Education Information System (EHIS); on a positive decision, it may then apply for the corresponding activity licence.

The evaluation combines an institutional self-analysis with the judgement of independent experts, and examines the provider across eight assessment areas and twenty-seven criteria covering curriculum development, the curriculum itself, the planning and delivery of teaching, assessment and certification, trainer competence and professional development, quality management, and resources. Criteria and assessment areas are rated on a three-level scale, and a positive decision is valid for five years.

The current requirements and procedure were adopted by HAKA’s continuing education assessment council on 30 April 2025. The microcredential provisions entered into force on 1 April 2025, providers have been able to submit applications since 1 May 2025, and they were required to meet the requirements of the Adult Education Act by 1 September 2025.