Tallinn to provide all preschool groups with teacher proficient in Estonian

TALLINN - In the first year of transitioning to Estonian as the language of instruction, Tallinn's kindergartens will need to adjust their operations but will offer the planned number of places and ensure the presence of a teacher in every group.

Deputy Mayor Aleksei Jašin said in a press release on Tuesday that staff at Tallinn's kindergartens have been working hard to be fully prepared for the first year of the transition to Estonian as the language of instruction. However, the shortage of teachers remains a serious challenge, requiring kindergartens to reorganize their operations to ensure the required number of staff to care for the children.

"Today, we are in a situation where not all kindergarten teachers were able to acquire the proficiency in Estonian required by law by August. Many left voluntarily, and there were also cases where employment contracts had to be terminated at the employer's initiative. However, we are pleased that some teachers chose to continue working as assistant teachers rather than leave. This ensures that parents can be confident, as each Tallinn kindergarten group will still be cared for by three specialists -- one teacher and two assistant teachers," said Jašin.

"Our goal is to restore as soon as possible the previous system, where there were two teachers in each group. To this end, the City of Tallinn will support assistant teachers by offering various support measures so that they can improve their Estonian language skills and return to work as teachers," the deputy mayor said.

In addition, the city government allocated additional funds to the payroll of educational institutions, which kindergarten managers can use to additionally motivate particularly dedicated employees, as well as recruit new teachers.

To support this, Tallinn will organize a campaign in August to recruit new teachers and will continue to provide comprehensive recruitment support to educational institutions.

From Aug. 1, the Estonian language proficiency requirement applies as a qualification requirement to teachers and support specialists. There are a total of 46 kindergartens undergoing the transition in Tallinn, which, as at Aug. 5, employed nearly 450 teachers whose language level fully met valid requirements.

As of Aug. 1, the contracts of 165 kindergarten teachers who lacked the necessary language skills were terminated. The city is working with the Unemployment Insurance Fund to support the teachers who have had to leave their jobs. Most of the kindergarten teachers who do not speak Estonian at C1 level have decided to continue working as assistant teachers. Tallinn will continue to offer a range of support measures, including language courses, language apps and language mobility projects, to support teachers' motivation to obtain the required proficiency level in Estonian  and to revert to the two-teacher system as soon as possible. 

The City of Tallinn will allocate an additional 1.5 million euros to augment the payroll of kindergarten teachers in the upcoming academic year. In addition to the kindergartens that are transitioning to Estonian-language instruction, Estonian-medium kindergartens are also supported, as every year these kindergartens are accepting more and more children whose first language is not Estonian.