Education ministry challenges plan for new AI training portal

Estonia’s Ministry of Education and Research is questioning whether the government needs a separate portal to promote artificial intelligence training, saying it could duplicate existing services and cost more. The ministry asked the State Chancellery, a government office running the procurement, to explain its decision, ERR reported.

The State Chancellery is seeking a company to build the Eesti.ai platform for workshops and other training, under a procurement worth 10 million euros.

In a letter sent on Thursday, the ministry asked why existing education platforms could not be used or expanded instead. Secretary General Triin Laasi-Õige said the options should be assessed before a new state portal is created.

She cited the education portal, the Juhan continuing education information system, and the Digital State Academy, which provides online training and learning materials for public-sector employees and more broadly. The ministry asked which needs could not be met by developing or connecting these services, and requested any analysis on the matter.

The ministry also wants to know how a new portal would affect the state’s IT portfolio, system interoperability, data exchange, user experience and the development of existing services. It asked whether the procurement preparation compared building a new platform with upgrading or connecting existing ones, and which option would be most cost-effective over the portal’s full lifecycle.

The planned partnership would last three years. The ministry has asked how the portal would be funded afterward, which institution would own it, what its annual maintenance and development costs would be, and who would cover them.

“Before proceeding with a new state portal for matching people with learning opportunities, we consider it necessary to assess the use and further development of existing portals,” Laasi-Õige said. If a separate portal is justified, she said, its cost-effectiveness and sustainability, along with its long-term ownership, responsibility, funding and maintenance arrangements, should be clearly addressed.

The ministry wants to take part in further discussions to ensure public money is used effectively and to avoid unjustified duplication. The “Smartest AI Nation” programme aims to involve at least 100,000 people in Estonia in AI workshops and other learning formats to promote the use of AI at work.