Eve Kikas receives education lifetime achievement award
Saturday 10th October 2026 on 21:45 in
Estonia
Educational psychologist Eve Kikas has received Estonia’s 2026 state lifetime achievement award for education workers, ERR reported. The award was announced at the Teacher of the Year gala, which recognised winners in 12 categories spanning kindergarten to university.
Kikas heads the Centre for Educational Psychology at Tallinn University. She has co-authored three handbooks on child development and written more than 120 articles. She has also led the development and modernisation of assessment tools for school psychologists and contributed to online tools for assessing children’s development.
The Ministry of Education and Research said Kikas connects research with practical work, making her findings important to specialists working in schools.
Accepting the award, Kikas said she saw it as recognition for everyone who had worked over the decades to bring psychological knowledge into education and put it into practice. She said understanding people’s psychological characteristics, how these appear at the individual level and in the wider social environment, was extremely important when teaching was not based only on commands and prohibitions.
The other 2026 Teacher of the Year award winners were kindergarten teacher Janne Juur of Ilmatsalu Kindergarten Lepatriinu; class teacher Jana Söödor of Viljandi Paalalinna School; primary school teacher Heli Prii of Paide Hillar Hanssoo Basic School; upper secondary school teacher Erkki Tempel of Pärnu Sütevaka Humanities Gymnasium; hobby education teacher Kaspar Kõiva of Pernova Education Centre; vocational teacher Lauri Tasso of Võrumaa Education and Technology Centre EWERS; basic school subject teacher Joana Jõgela of Tartu Lutheran Peetri School; support specialist Ly Erg of the Education Support Services Centre; head of an educational institution Tatjana Požogina of Tallinn Suur-Pae Kindergarten; university lecturer Anneli Ramjalg of Tallinn University of Applied Sciences; education advocate Heateo Haridusfond; and education initiative TalTech’s IT diversification programme.
Tags: education, Eve Kikas, Teacher of the Year