Journalist Mirko Ojakivi: The Delfi newsportal wrote last night that the Tallinn University of Technology in the autumn will still not accept students from third countries, who are coming from countries where the ratio of infected is greater than 16 per 100 000 inhabitants, but the decision of the senate still does not affect all students. Students from third countries are welcome in September to the school in Mustamäe, who are enrolling in Doctoral studies or who are continuing at the same school in Master's studies after having completed Bachelor’s studies at the same school. Close to half a thousand students have however signed a petition that has been forwarded to the university senate. We now have on the phone the Vice Rector for Academic Affairs of the Tallinn University of Technology, Hendrik Voll, hello.

What is your initial comment/assessment on the given petition, which probably by today has already reached the Tallinn University of Technology?

Hendrik Voll:

The petition has not yet reached the Tallinn University of Technology.

Mirko Ojakivi:

The subject is familiar to you, therefore despite that it is highly unlikely that a foreign student is currently listening to an Estonian broadcast on Vikerraadio, but you still have a message to these students. You probably have had to explain on an individual level, so what is your response to students.

Hendrik Voll:

I would clarify a little bit that the list of students we are accepting and rejecting will be closed as of the third of August, so the given list is not yet final. The website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs currently mentions 14 third countries that are low risk corona countries and these students we are ready to accept. We will also accept those students, if the list of countries is extended by the third of August. I would also like to stress that the university has an obligation to deal with all the students already studying at the Tallinn University of Technology and there is quite a number of students from corona risk countries. They went to their home countries during the corona pandemic and now want to come back. They are already our students and we have an obligation to deal with them. It is estimated that there are 200 to 250 returning students and we will deal with them, but the number of new students, I cannot say as of the third of August exactly, but the final estimate is around 300 students. The Tallinn University of Technology, looking at what the university must do and for what it is responsible, does not have such capacity.

Mirko Ojakivi:

Why in this sense have you made such a decision? Is this in principle caused by the world at the time of the corona virus, where the Tallinn University of Technology would not be able to take the role of hosting these people coming from countries where the infection ratio is very high and it may bring with it additional obligations, as well as problems in society, if something should go wrong there?

Hendrik Voll:

I in this case ask you in return, imagine that you should go to Bangladesh, be in self isolation for two weeks, take two corona tests and so on and on. Would you personally be able to manage that? You would probably need support. This obligation, when looking at other universities, has been placed on the students. We did not consider this to be right that students themselves should take on this obligation. Think in reality that if you were to go to a totally foreign country for the first time, you would need assistance and support. We ourselves are not capable of providing that. We would need to meet them at the airport, if we do this in all seriousness. They are not arriving on a single airplane, like the Ukrainian agricultural workers, so that we could immediately direct them to a corona check, transport them and provide accommodation. They will arrive with different aircraft, at different times, they use public transport to go to Tallinn, Tartu. We do not have accommodation ourselves to offer to them, as we have had an extremely good enrolment for programmes in Estonian and the dormitories are full. This would mean that the foreign students would go somewhere within the city and rent apartments on their own. Receiving the apartment requires communication with someone. The person is hungry on arrival and goes to the store to buy food. The person has been in contact with a lot of people even prior to making it to the corona test. The person being tested for corona does not have an obligation to inform the employer of a positive test result and the provider of the test does not have a right to send the result to the inviter. We are in a very difficult situation and we see that we simply cannot, in the given situation stand good for hindering the spread of corona. I would also like to stress that the corona pandemic has not disappeared from the world. We have as if very quickly forgotten that corona is spreading with full force in the world, even expanding and swelling. I do not personally and I do not think that the entire Tallinn University of Technology would want us to return to the emergency situation.

Mirko Ojakivi:

I understand that the other alternative would be that the Estonian state would deal with all of this, but I also understand that this would go beyond the power of the Estonian state too, so that we do not have such institutions that would start dealing with foreign students, meeting planes, testing them and then organising all other life matters.

Hendrik Voll:

The Tallinn University of Technology, in such a case that the Estonian state would be capable of dealing with them, would be ready to accept them. The confusion with foreign students indeed has been very large. Our embassies have been closed for a long time. We have received information from the Ministry of the Interior that some foreign countries will not be accepted for a long time. We received notification on the sixth of July that all are welcome, but it is then the obligation of the university. We received this information so late that we had no other possibilities. We then put the pros and cons side by side, communicated with the ministries and figured out that it is being honest with ourselves, the people of Estonia and also the students that we did not take such a risk.

Mirko Ojakivi:

Other Estonian universities have not yet made such a decision. Will they make such a decision in the near future or have you at all communicated with the University of Tartu or the Tallinn University on how they plan to act in a similar case?

Hendrik Voll:

The Tallinn University is offering remote studies in the first semester, but they will not be allowed here in Estonia. The Tallinn University of Technology also considered at length, if to offer remote studies or hybrid studies. The difference is that in hybrid studies we have students in the classroom and those who are not in Estonia are online or at the same time virtually in the same classroom, with the assistance of a computer. This sounds very nice on paper, but when we started thinking practically of this, if we are capable of ensuring such quality between several continents that everything works in sync, then no. It obviously became out of question that such quality cannot be considered, if it means that a third of the lecture time needs to be devoted to establishing a connection between our classroom and the external environment. The second version is remote studies, which essentially is a simplified version of hybrid studies, where the students study independently, but the programmes of studies at the Tallinn University of Technology are so practical, we need decent engineers. The educating of engineers and computer engineers still requires extensive lab work and practical exercises. Imagine now that some students who are here on location complete these practical works and then we have to replace them somehow virtually for those students in remote studies, who are not on location. The quality will not be the same. It would not be fair to the students. This would be already somewhat similar to the fabrication of diplomas, with which the Tallinn University of Technology also does not want to deal with.

Mirko Ojakivi:

Hendrik Voll, what economic impact does this decision now have on the Tallinn University of Technology? These students that you could not enrol this year, will also not study here next year and the year after - they pay tuition. This is definitely a part of the income of the Tallinn University of Technology. What expenses or loss of income must you now take into consideration?

                

Hendrik Voll:

This has been estimated at 300 000 Euros per semester.

Mirko Ojakivi:

This cumulates over the years and if the given situation continues to persist, it could cause economic problems and on a significant level.

Hendrik Voll:

Depends on how you look at it. The annual budget of the Tallinn University of Technology is 110 million, so that it is approx. half a million a year, 600000 it is certainly, but public health will definitely outweigh this decision.

Mirko Ojakivi:

But how would you assess how this year's decision can affect the attractiveness of the Tallinn University of Technology among foreign students in the future? Will this cause such a short term damage to reputation and problem or could this still result in some kind of longer term problem that you will then have to face?

Hendrik Voll:

Last week a decision came about the creation of a very large consortium of European universities of technology, to which belong the Technical University of Munich, the Technical University of Denmark, the Eindhoven University of Technology, EPFL from Switzerland, École Polytechnique from France and the Czech Technical University . This effectively means that the universities form a consortium. This means that in the near future the number of students at the Tallinn University of Technology will be over 100 000, of which a large part will be foreign students. Programmes of studies have been reciprocally accepted and the mobility of students takes place like the Schengen principles. A student enrols with one of the university, chooses him/herself which subject from which university he/she takes. A diploma from all universities is received upon graduation, so the Tallinn University of Technology will become manifold international in the upcoming future.

Mirko Ojakivi:

I see in conclusion that foreign students started today to drop the rating of the university on Facebook. This morning the number stood at 4.6 on a scale of five, then now it is 3.3. It still seems that many have taken the decision deeply to heart, in a negative way and are essentially voting with their feet and fingers.

                

Hendrik Voll:

Well, that is understandable. We do not once again, want to burden anyone and we would be willing to accept them, but we do not have such a capacity to ensure everything. We must deal with those students who are already our students, are returning and we evaluated the risk to be too high for the health of the people of Estonia, to take the risk. It is apparent that no one in the Estonian state wants the return of the emergency situation. That our children go to school remotely, so that our unemployment grows further and so on. It was naturally of course the making, of a choice between difficult decisions. And that was the decision of the Tallinn University of Technology.

Mirko Ojakivi:

Fully understandable, so I understand there is a need to explain domestically, as well as abroad and foremost abroad to explain, explain and explain again.

                

Hendrik Voll:

Well, we have already put all our arguments on the table and everything has been explained so that I do not know what else to explain here. All the arguments have been put forward, everything has been written in the address sent to foreign students, so that the only question here has probably been that we have already talked about the capacity for remote studies, why we are not inviting them on location has been talked over. The only question that has been raised is why we have not accepted them for the next year. The message of the Tallinn University of Technology is that they do not have to pay this fee, which is 100 Euros, which is the application fee. We cannot consider them as enrolled for next year for the reason that next year we will significantly increase the thresholds of acceptance for the English language study programmes. We will start using the international SAT and GRE tests, which have also been accepted by top universities. This year these were not a part of the criteria for admission. Some foreign students had also received a tution fee waiver from us or the possibility to study for free. The draft Aliens Act states that it is no longer permitted to offer tution fee waiver for studies in English language programmes. We cannot now cheat twice on students, promising them something now that we might have to withdraw from next year.

Mirko Ojakivi:

Thank you very much Tallinn University of Technology, Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, Hendrik Voll. Have a nice day and lots of encouragement to you.

Hendrik Voll: Thank you.