">"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)
source: Eurolang