Kallas says schoolless pupils have near-zero Estonian

More than 60 percent of young people who remained without a school place until the last moment came from Russian-language basic schools, and their lack of Estonian prevented them from entering vocational education, Education Minister Kristina Kallas said, according to ERR.

About 1,300 young people of compulsory school age still did not have a school place one day before the start of the school year. As of September 11, the figure included 485 graduates of basic school.

Kallas said the problem, which was particularly acute in Tallinn, mainly affected graduates of Russian-language basic schools. “They could not even enter vocational education solely because their Estonian was at almost zero level, despite having studied Estonian for nine years,” she said.

She added that these young people could not be admitted to vocational schools even with concessions because vocational education includes technical subjects. It would not be possible for a student who cannot understand even safety instructions to participate in lessons, she said.

According to Kallas, Tallinn’s city government strongly criticised the Ministry of Education over the students without school places. She said the state also had responsibility, but that Tallinn, led by the Centre Party, had defended Russian-language schools for years and argued that they should not be dismantled.

“The fact that these children do not continue their education has always been the case; they have simply been out of sight until now. It is painful to see what really happens to those who come from Russian-language schools. It is hypocrisy for the Centre Party to suddenly be very concerned when it has firmly defended Russian-language schools and teaching in Russian in those schools all these years,” Kallas said.

The minister said these children had studied Estonian for nine years, 45 minutes a day, without any other school activities taking place in Estonian. It was also possible that explanations during Estonian lessons had been given in Russian. Their exposure to Estonian had therefore been practically nonexistent, she said.

Schools transitioning to Estonian-language education must conduct a proficiency assessment in fourth grade. The average result was above 50 percent both among pupils who began Estonian-language education in 2024 and among those who started last year.

Kallas said this could not be considered a good result when half of the pupils achieved A1, the absolute basic level of language proficiency, while the other half did not reach even that level.

“This shows that children who had studied in Russian for three years and studied Estonian for three years were unable to complete the A1 assessment in fourth grade. This is a real concern for us,” the education minister said.

Ministry considering language exemption for mathematics exam

The ministry is separately considering which language pupils who switched to Estonian-language education two years ago and are now in sixth grade should use for the basic school mathematics final exam in three years.

Kallas said the options were to allow a choice of language in the mathematics exam or to conduct it in simplified Estonian, because the aim was to assess mathematics skills rather than language proficiency.

“This is a major question for us. We are trying to discuss it with university experts, and the proficiency assessments will show what level of Estonian they have,” Kallas said.

She cited Latvia’s PISA results as a lesson. Latvia’s results fell below the OECD average after the government decided that all children would take the PISA test in Latvian, even though Russian-speaking children had studied in Latvian for only two years.

A language proficiency measurement will be added to the school readiness report issued at the end of kindergarten, allowing schools to learn what level of language proficiency children have when they arrive from kindergarten. The test has been developed for kindergartens and first grade.