Language Training for Adults

In recent year, the interest of non-Estonian speaking people in learning Estonian has increased and their language skills have improved. The Estonian language skills of young non-Estonians are considerably better when compared to the skills of adults. When the share of people with Estonian language skills among non-Estonians in 1989 was 14% (17% among Russians due to the historical Russian minority), then in 1999, 67% of adults and 92% of young people considered themselves to be proficient in Estonian language. However, Estonian language proficiency among adult non-Estonian speaking population is still insufficient to allow them to compete with Estonians in the labour market on an equal basis or to generally cope in everyday situations.

The goal set to the adult language study programme by the State Integration Programme is creation of conditions for improvement of the Estonian language skills of adults and increase of their socio-cultural competency. The following large-scale programmes have been completed in order to achieve this goal:

• Project Interest for Refunding Language Learning Fees (1999-2005);
• Professional Estonian language studies for police officials, rescue workers, prison officers, medical staff, teachers in non-Estonian language schools and the unemployed (1999-2004);
• Labour force assignment programmes for local government employees, police workers and rescue workers (2000-2008).