Search graduate:

Robin Liksor

  • Industrial and Digital Product Design
  • BA
  • Design Education in Estonian Secondary Schools – Mapping the Design Elective Courses
  • Tutor: Eva Liisa Kubinyi

The aim of the bachelor’s thesis was to map design education, i.e. what are the current opportunities for studying design at the Estonian secondary school level and what are the more general challenges, why this specialty has not yet become more widespread.

In order to achieve the aim mentioned above, I researched the Estonian national curriculum for upper secondary schools, conducted interviews with art teachers and experts in the design education field, and compiled a questionnaire for the teachers of Estonian-language secondary schools in Tallinn. The focus group of the thesis was Estonian-language upper secondary schools in Tallinn, and the main focus was on electives in design.

In the national compulsory curriculum for upper secondary schools, only art education teaches design. There are four elective subjects in the Estonian national upper secondary schools curriculum. The only elective focused on design is “Design and Process”, others teach design superficially.

The main problem from the analysis of the interviews and the questionnaire was that there is a lack of competent design teachers in the schools. This is mainly due to the lack of support, additional training, and methodological materials for teachers in the field of design.

The solutions to the problems proposed were:
– Conducting additional training
– Preparation of reference materials
– Creating a design textbook
– Creating a community
– Inviting guests to schools
– Attending The Estonian Academy of Arts tours
– Organisation of design contests
– Organisation of design camps
– Making a design TV show