Andrei Kante, Deputy Mayor of Tallinn in the field of education
Presented by the National Audit Office yesterday voluminous report not the most entertaining read. At the same time, according to my understanding, all thinking people should familiarize themselves with its contents. This document seems to provide an exhaustive answer to the question of why our children have not yet been able to acquire the Estonian language to the level required by the national curriculum.
Today, we all have to agree that we have reached the current state of crying due to the interaction of many factors. One of the main ones is the excessive politicization of the Estonian language. As a rule, after the question of the Estonian language had been at the center of the day’s topics for some time, and when it was necessary to act, our Russian-speaking schools were left alone, and did not receive real support anywhere.
The transition to Estonian-language education will begin in 2024, and it will (most importantly!) be implemented by the existing teaching staff. New teachers are not coming from outside, and we have nowhere to hire them in the required amount. According to experts (but the Tallinn city government and the heads of the capital’s schools have been talking about this for years!) the national order for teacher training has long been incomplete. And it is currently at too low a level to allow schools to switch to high-quality education in Estonian.
Immersion works
Only the immersion experience accumulated over time by enthusiasts can come in handy here. And here too, it is difficult to disagree with the state audit experts: “Effective language learning methods – integrated subject and language learning, including early language immersion – the potential is not used enough”. However, with the reform that is being launched quickly, we will reach the point where the losers are once again the children, that is, the already functioning language immersion program will be dismantled, as the teachers currently working on the basis of this program will be transferred to the so-called “transition target group”.
It is high time to bring the systemic risk of the transition to the public’s attention: from 2025, we will no longer be able to staff the target group of the transition with teachers, nor the currently functioning language immersion program. And once again we have to talk about the decline in quality, which seems to be already coded into this reform.
Teaching a foreign language is not easy
In reality, the lack of teachers indicated in the audit is significantly more disturbing. One thing is the language category on paper – someone passes the exam, someone doesn’t; unfortunately, many teachers who are already mentally burned out or on the verge of burnout are ready to leave the school altogether; – but teaching in a foreign language is a completely different matter. It is already clear today that some teachers who have acquired the Estonian language at the C1 level are not ready to teach their subject in Estonian. However, since there are no new methodologies and other effective measures, and we cannot hope that they will come immediately, these teachers cannot be condemned in any way.
It’s obvious, but I’ll repeat it again: in school, it’s not the language category that teaches, but people! However, the reform is not carried out by an Excel table either. Therefore, I would like to hope that the officials of the Ministry take seriously one of the most important recommendations of the National Audit Office: the Ministry must cooperate more systematically with local governments than before, all parties must have the same understanding of who does what and is responsible for what. After all, we all have one goal – to provide quality education to children and not let the system fall apart in political winds and promises.