[EDLING:378] Russian-medium Education in Estonia

[Francis M. Hult]

“Nobody is going to abolish Russian-medium education in Estonia,” says Toivo
Maimets, Estonian Minister of Education
Tallinn 11/8/2004 , by Alexander Shegedin

http://www.eurolang.net/news.asp?id=4801

“Nobody is going to abolish Russian-medium education in Estonia”, says Toivo
Maimets, Estonian Minister of Education, in interview to the Latvian Russian-
language newspaper ‘Telegraf’ last week. According to the Minister, the
government plans to switch 60% of Russian-medium schooling (in the 10th and
12th grades) into the Estonian language. But, unlike Latvia, Estonian local
authorities have the right to apply to central government to exclude those
schools not ready for reform from the process.

Toivo Maimets states that there is no fixed date for the language switch in
Estonia. 2007 is only the starting point for reform. The Minister claims that
the Russian schools have a wide range of opportunities to reform the training
process, taking into consideration the real abilities of the school, the
wishes of parents and school-children’s abilities. “No schools will suddenly
enforce the introduction of the Estonian language”, said the Minister.

Similar school reform in Latvia has split society resulting in growing
tensions between Latvians and the Russian-speaking national minority. Maimets
claims that Latvian experience is being closely investigated in Estonia. “I
think that we are very similar to Latvia concerning the issues of education of
national minorities. We have come along very similar roads on the strategic
level, but our tactics are different”, explains Maimets.

Maimets stressed that the deadline for Estonian school reform is not fixed
adding that local authorities can keep Russian-medium education in certain
schools if it is necessary.

The Minister hopes that by 2007 the Estonian authorities will get an
evaluation of the Latvian reform and a clearer picture about changes in
Russian-language education in Estonia. “Time is a crucial factor in teacher
training. It’s important to guarantee not just an ability to teach in the
Estonian language, but high-quality teaching,” added the Minister.

Mr Maimets believes that school reform in Estonia will not lead to the wide-
spread protests seen in Latvia. In his opinion, the main goal of government is
to keep people fully informed on the educational reform process. (Eurolang)