6.9 Awareness-raising about non-formal and informal learning and quality youth work
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Information providers / counselling structures
Youth information is defined as one area of youth work in Estonia and The Youth Agency of the Archimedes Foundation (since 01.01.2021 the Department of Youth Programs of the Agency of Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps of the Education and Youth Board) is supporting access and promotion of European youth portal in Estonia.
There are 16 centralised public centres in all counties. The regional youth guidance centres, called Pathfinder centres (Rajaleidja), provide career information, career counselling, psychological, socio-pedagogical, special education counselling and speech therapy. Please see chapter 3.4. for more information on guidance and counselling in Rajaleidja Centres.
Estonian Youth Work Centre (since 01.08.2020 Education and Youth Board) organised yearly an information fair for youth Teeviit attended by thousands of young people in Estonia. The event ended in 2017, and, in 2018, Teeviit became the national youth information channel for young people.
In addition, local and regional information for youth is available through local youth information portals such as
Awareness raising initiatives
Throughout the years, different awareness-raising campaigns have been implemented, especially supporting awareness about learning that takes place in a youth work setting. As a result, the importance of nonformal and informal learning is currently acknowledged in several policy documents such as the Estonian Lifelong Learning Strategy 2020 and the Youth Field development plan 2014-2020.
There are 3 dedicated resource portals to support the development of understanding about the value of non-formal and informal education, especially in youth work:
- Mitteformaalne is a resource and information portal targeting mainly youth worker, young leaders, teachers and trainers with an aim to promote the value of non-formal learning and to support its development by providing access to training materials, publications, methods and training opportunities.
- Teeviit(formerly known as Stardiplats) is a resource and information portal targeting young people in the age group 7-26 as a main target group, but also youth workers. The aim is to provide opportunities and support to acknowledge and document the learning that takes place in youth work.
- Noortepass is a portal to support young people to use European Youth Pass as a tool to document and recognise non-formal and informal learning.