The attempt to teach Russian-speaking girls and young people the state language encountered unexpected obstacles from the children and parents of Estonia.
The Ida-Viru County Center for Vocational Education began intensive Estonian language training for 500 first-year students in early February; however, one hundred of them stopped attending school afterward, reports the publication Põhjarannik.
The vocational education center suspended the teaching of specialized and general education subjects for those first-year students whose proficiency in the Estonian language does not even reach B1. Instead, for two to three months, they are offered in-depth study of the Estonian language so that they can then begin studying other subjects in Estonian.
To this end, the vocational education center hired several dozen Estonian language teachers across Estonia. In total, this affected 500 students, whose language proficiency was determined based on test results conducted in January.
By the middle of the first week of intensive training, the center's director, Hendrik Agur, reported that he was concerned that one-fifth of these students, or about one hundred people, had not come to school. At that time, he was unsure whether this was related to a wave of flu or a protest against studying the Estonian language.
Two weeks later, the situation had not changed, and about one hundred students from the center still had not appeared at school. Over the weekend, Agur made a public appeal to the parents of these children, urging them to send their children to school. So far, there has been no response.
