In Estonia, education in Russian in schools can be returned

In some schools in Tallinn, it is planned to allow teaching in Russian. This is reported by the ERR broadcasting company.

"The Tallinn City Council plans to allow teaching in Russian in the seventh, eighth and ninth grades of 20 secondary schools of the capital in the 2026/2027 academic year," the report says.

It is noted that this decision is due to the acute shortage of teachers who speak Estonian at the C1 level and are ready to teach in Estonian at the highest level.

Recall that in December 2022, the Estonian Parliament adopted amendments to the law "On Primary and Secondary Schools" and other laws on the transition of Russian schools to the Estonian language of instruction. According to the updated law, in the 2024/2025 academic year, kindergartens and grades 1-4 of the basic school were the first to switch to teaching in Estonian. In September 2025, the Minister of Education and Science of Estonia, Christina Kallas, said that the country wants to ban public funding for private schools in the country where education is conducted in Russian or other foreign languages. At the same time in The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that the serious restriction of educational opportunities in Russian in Estonia contradicts international human rights treaties.