The Cabinet has turned down the plea of 15 Russian-language upper secondary schools to be exempted from the 60 percent transition to teaching in Estonian.
Ten of the schools that have said they are unable to comply are in Tallinn, with the rest in Narva.
The Ministry of Education has earlier said that the time given to the schools - five years - should have been sufficient for making the necessary preparations. The state has also been allocating extra funds to Russian-language high schools for motivating teachers, purchasing study materials and organizing extracurricular activities for the development of language skills since 2007.
The schools which asked for the exemption had altogether received 290,000 euros of extra funding, the ministry said.
Since the law took effect this year, a part of the Russian-speaking community has organized numerous protests on the grounds of possible deterioration in the quality of education due to the language shift. The lack of customized Estonian-language textbooks and poor language proficiency of students coming from junior high schools, as well as teachers, have also been presented as arguments.
Ingrid Teesalu
Russian schools are here to stay : Jaak Aaviksoo
Minister of Education Jaak Aaviksoo tried to appease supporters of Russian curriculum at a press conference, after the Cabinet today dismissed an appeal from 15 schools in Tallinn and Narva that asked to be exempt from new language requirements.
“Russian schools have been in Estonia for centuries and they aren't going anywhere,” said Aaviksoo. “The Russian-language population's freedom to receive an education in their native language will remain.”
At the same time, Aaviksoo called attacks against the new language policies - such as the claim that reforms are unconstitutional - unfounded and misleading.
The minister also expressed confidence that all of the schools demanding for exemption are prepared to make the three-year transition to teaching 60 percent of classes in Estonian. Aaviksoo cited an additional 500,000-euro earmark as evidence that the government is supporting schools in the cause.
Meanwhile, opponents on Thursday said they would establish private schools to bypass the new requirements.
Ott Tammik
Comments