Northeastern Estonian vocational school ends Russian-language continuing ed
As it shifts fully to Estonian, an Ida-Viru County vocational school is ending its Russian-language continuing education programs, despite state funding that remains for them.
The Ida-Virumaa Vocational Education Center (IVKHK) is currently running intensive Estonian language courses to help vocational students improve their language schools.
Starting this fall, it will end the "60/40" model of partially Russian-language instruction and switch entirely to Estonian.
Continuing education programs in Russian, both state-supported and company-commissioned, will also be discontinued.
"We believe education in Estonia, including vocational education, should be in Estonian," said IVKHK principal Hendrik Agur, commenting on the decision.
He acknowledged the change is significant for the northeastern border county, where demand for Russian-language programs remains, but emphasized the move will help students be competitive outside the region as well, where Russian alone is not enough to get by.
Agur added that the school can offer Estonian language catch-up classes for adults if needed.
Alo Savi, head of the Vocational Education and Skills Policy Department at the Ministry of Education and Research, confirmed this was the school's own decision.
"The state training mandate doesn't require courses to be in Estonian; Russian-language programs are also available," Savi said.
The state's online education portal, he added, still offers more than 50 free continuing education courses in Russian.
IVKHK operates campuses in Jõhvi, Narva and Sillamäe.
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Editor: Johanna Alvin, Aili Vahtla
