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OECD recommends to intensify teaching of Estonian to Russian children

BC, Tallinn, 07.04.2016.Print version
In its fresh report on resource use in the Estonian education system, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has recommended that Estonia target extra resources for Russian-speaking students, informs LETA.

"Language acquisition problems clearly pose barriers to, and raise the costs of Russian-speaking students advancing through Estonia's education system. As such, they run against Estonia's commitment to equal opportunity and fair treatment. Language barriers are likely to distort the choice of upper secondary programs by Russian-speaking students in favor of vocational programs, and thus ameliorating the basis for this choice would probably improve the efficiency of the system as well," the OECD report on Estonia says.

 

It says that, hence, the national government should consider developing an earmarked grant designed to provide financial support to municipalities and schools for the additional hours of Estonian language instruction necessary to make Russian-speaking students proficient in the country's official language.

 

"While Estonia has a few programs designed to provide additional financial support to schools with Russian language of instruction, as well as additional Estonian language training to Russian-speaking students, these programs are of limited scope. While the school funding formula provides for extra funding for Russian-speaking students, potentially for extra teaching hours in Estonian language, the actual use of this extra funding is not audited. In addition, difficulties in mastering Estonian are imposing sometimes significant costs on Russian-speaking households for private language instruction," the report adds.

 

Commenting on the findings of the report, the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research said it agrees with it that improving the Estonian language skills of students of Russian-language schools is very important. Increasing the percentage of graduates of Russian medium basic schools who have at least B1 level proficiency in Estonian language is also one of the objectives of the Lifelong Learning Strategy, it said.

 

As planned activities to advance the teaching of Estonian language, the ministry listed creating an individual language learning support system for teachers and other education workers and organizing training for school teams.

 

The ministry is planning to focus on expanding early language immersion in kindergartens and broadening opportunities for the study of Estonian language in kindergartens and basic schools, since the language immersion program has proved the most effective tool for teaching the Estonian language. The ministry is also planning to expand the program of student exchanges within Estonia to create opportunities for children whose first language is Estonian and for children whose first language is Russian to engage in joint extra-curricular activities.

 

The ministry also promised to overhaul the national syllabus for teaching of Estonian as second language and to devise innovative teaching methods. The Ministry of Education and Research intends to develop digital and interactive study materials for students with different proficiency levels in Estonian, organize summer camps for improving command of the Estonian language for graduates of basic schools, improve schools' readiness to work wirth children from various cultural backgrounds and establish multicultural schools.

 

There is a need to clarify responsibilities in the Estonian education sector, the OECD said in a report.

 

The distribution of responsibilities between the state and the municipalities for the provision of public education services in Estonia is complex and leads to an unclear distribution of responsibilities. "In fact, the municipal and the state-owned schools engage in competition in general education, in special needs education and – to a lesser extent – in vocational education and training. This results in declining clarity of the responsibilities for setting the funding rules and for leading the school consolidation process," the OECD report on Estonia says.

 

The ambiguous distribution of responsibilities is reinforced by the funding system, it says. The lack of a clear statement of objectives for the funding system leads to diluted responsibility for resource management, which ends up mostly in school directors' hands.

 

The OECD review team supports the Estonian government's goal of "recentralizing" general upper secondary education as an important step to simplify the governance of public schooling in Estonia whereby, in the long-term, a clear division of labor will be established: municipalities managing pre-primary and basic education; and the state managing gymnasiums, vocational education and special schools. This would be part of the larger strategy to clarify responsibilities in the education sector.

 

Separately, the reports points out that the national government should be extremely cautious about constructing state-run gymnasiums, or renovating existing infrastructure, though it clearly may be called for in some places. Instead, the government should first assess which large municipalities are capable and willing to offer general upper secondary education, within regulatory parameters established by the state, and then follow a county or regional-based approach to define where the new state-run gymnasiums should be located.

 

The review team cautions that it's not hard to anticipate scenarios in which the state builds new gymnasiums, pays larger municipalities considerable amounts of money to restructure their basic schools to agree to the deal, and still finds itself losing the battle to fill its new facility because the local children stay local, some of the commuting children like municipal or private schools better, and other commuting children decide to stay home even if upper secondary education they are getting is small and limited.

 

The report that forms part of the OECD Review of Policies to Improve the Effectiveness of Resource Use in Schools was presented on Wednesday by Estonian Minister of Education and Research Jurgen Ligi and OECD senior analyst Paulo Santiago.


Following a preparatory visit by the OECD Secretariat to Estonia in June 2014, the review visit to Estonia took place on Oct. 20 to 27 the same year. In the course of the visit designed by the OECD, with input from the EC, in collaboration with Estonian authorities, the review team met with more than 200 people representing the Estonian education system in different roles.

 






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