Dialect teaching plan raises questions for students and school leaders

A proposal to expand the teaching of regional Estonian varieties has raised concerns about workload, funding and teacher availability, ERR reports. The Education Ministry’s draft would allow students to replace B-level foreign-language classes with lessons in a regional variety of Estonian.

Under the proposal, parents could ask a school to offer their regional language if at least 10 children want to study it. The Estonian Student Representatives’ Union supports promoting the use of dialects among young people, but says lessons must not come at the expense of students’ free time and well-being.

Union chair Karl Erik Kirss told Education Minister Kristina Kallas that adding another class to an already demanding timetable could make students resent the language rather than value it. He also warned that the change would require extra funding and that schools already struggling to recruit teachers might find it difficult to hire qualified dialect instructors.

Kirss said the state should ensure teachers are available if schools are required to offer regional language classes at parents’ request. The union also questioned the threshold of 10 parent requests, saying it could be too strict for schools with fewer than 20 students. Some such schools are in areas where regional varieties have historically been spoken, including small islands.

The union suggested waiving the 10-request requirement at small schools and using the proportion of students who want lessons instead. It also said the state should support dialect teaching in larger centres, so young people who move from places such as Kihnu to Pärnu or Setomaa to Tartu can maintain ties with their home culture.

The Estonian School Leaders’ Association said regional language and local culture could instead be taught as an elective or through extracurricular activities, based on agreements within communities. It said education requirements should continue to be set out in the national curriculum, warning that having several legal acts regulate teaching could put pressure on students’ workload, school operations and funding. The association also said that separate rules could obscure the overall picture and create difficulties that might otherwise have been avoided.