The Unemployment Insurance Fund puts the number of educators who do not meet language requirements, and so who may well enter the job market, at a couple of hundred in Narva alone.

Narva City Government has invited teachers to an information session organized by the unemployment fund; invited attendees have already received their termination notices, or are due to receive them shortly.

Most of them say they have been learning Estonian their entire lives, though this is still not sufficient to meet the qualification requirements.

At the same time, the official reason for their dismissal is considered by many of them to be demeaning.

One teacher, Olga, told "Aktuaalne kaamera" (AK): "They say we have not been able to disburse our duties for a long period of time."

"This is not the case, and the reasoning seems demeaning," Olga went on.

"I am a third-generation teacher. My grandmother and mother were also teachers. I am a teacher by instinct. Yet the greatest challenge right now is that most of the experienced teachers do not know what will happen to them," she went on.

The city government is trying to salvage what can be rescued, and says it hopes that teachers in classes not yet transitioned to instruction in Estonian but who want to remain teachers can be given additional time for the required language training.

Narva Deputy Mayor Messurme Pissareva (Reform) said: "This is a major loss. We do not have that many specialists, special educators, or subject teachers. We are calling for a dialogue with the Ministry of Education, since on the one hand, they require a B2 level of language proficiency, but on the other, their working language is still Russian. Let's give them the opportunity to continue at their jobs."

The Unemployment Insurance Fund is nonetheless gearing up for another wave of layoffs in an area already hit by the decline of the oil shale mining sector.

Anneki Teelahk, head of the Unemployment Insurance Fund's Ida-Viru County office, said: "This time around so many teachers are coming at once.

"We have had many miners coming in all at once. There have also been times when many former fish processing workers in. These are all specific jobs, but it is not viable to offer a uniform solution for this group here. Once again, individual solutions must be considered," Teelahk added.

Around 150 teachers in Narva are set to lose their jobs this year, AK reported.

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