"It begins in basic school; the final B1 exams at the end of school are equally challenging, meaning that if nearly half or more of the young people fail the B1 exam at the end of basic school [grade 9], they also fail the B2 exam at the end of upper-secondary school [grade 12]," Kallas told ERR.

Kallas said the main reason for this is the separation of the Estonian education system into distinct Estonian and Russian schools, with only 45 minutes of Estonian language instruction per day in the latter.

"During these 45 minutes, the teacher often explains the rules of the Estonian grammar in Russian, which means that there is minimal contact with the active language. The problem has been discussed for decades now and with the move to education in Estonia only it is finally being solved," she said.

The minister believes that the problem of a lack of Estonian language skills will definitely be solved by switching to instruction in Estonian in Russian schools.

"Exposure to and use of the language will then become an everyday activity and students will engage in Estonian lessons regularly, not just 45 minutes a day. It is the actual use of the Estonian language that will lead to better language proficiency," the minister said.

Speaking about the next steps in education for Russian-speaking young people who failed the B2 exam, the minister said it was difficult.

"It is often impossible for them to go on to further their education because higher education actually requires C1-level of Estonian," Kallas said.

She said that one of the biggest drawbacks for Russian-speaking youths is that they are much less likely to enter higher education than Estonian-speaking young people.

"With each subsequent level of education, the chances of continuing their education seriously decline. So as part of the vocational education reform, we are working to establish a system that allows pupils to receive vocational education in Estonian in Ida-Viru County, as this has been a persistent issue. The monitoring results from last summer, for example, showed that vocational education in Estonia was not available at the Ida-Virumaa Vocational Education Center. In that regard, we've made a lot of changes in a year," Kallas said.

"Those Russian-speaking young people who today do not yet have a B2 level of Estonian should definitely continue their education in order to acquire Estonian and, in fact, the next level of education as well," Kallas said.

Narva head of school: The whole school needs to change, not just the language of instruction

Young people in Ida-Viru county didn't perform very well in the language exam: only 37.2 percent of upper-secondary school teachers in Ida-Viru county speak Estonian at the B2 level.

The principal of Narva High School, Teivi Gabriel, who previously worked as the head of learning and development at Kohtla-Järve High School, said there are various reasons why young people are failing.

"I'm not relying on data here, but rather on my own experience and what young people themselves say. One of the reasons for this is certainly that not all Estonian language teachers have a good command of the language; they do not express themselves fluently and clearly, and how can they teach the language to others? Such teachers may have young people in their study group who are stronger in Estonian than they are because, for example, they come from families that help their children learn the language well, send them to language courses, or encourage them to consume Estonian media," Gabriel said.

Another thing Gabriel has noticed is that when young people come to high school, their previous results and grades in Estonian are good, but only on paper, because they have only learned Estonian from books and workbooks.

"They know the words and can solve the problems, but they lack active language skills. They don't have a strong command of Estonian, and they struggle to express themselves effectively," Gabriel said.

Although it is often said that there are no Russian schools in Estonia, only the schools with Russian language of instruction, Gabriel said that that is not the case. "After all, what else can we call schools where everything from the library to the canteen, not to mention communication with teachers, is in Russian? If the school has decided to conduct its business and ceremonies in the 'language of comfort,' the young person will not have a language environment that supports his or her Estonian language skills. Instead of learning Estonian playfully as a child, the young person will have to do so later in a very demanding secondary school curriculum," he said.

He also said that the future prospects of young people who have not passed the B2 threshold are rather bleak. "Knowing some of these young people personally, it's sad to think where they'll go next," he said.

Narva High School's result in the Estonian as a secondary language state exams was above the Estonian average. "Our school's score was on average 66.7 percent. This year we are not really looking at the results because the students have only been with us for nine months and they come from four very different schools," Gabriel said.

He said that the effectiveness of the transition to Estonian language of instruction depends on how it is achieved.

"We cannot narrow the gap between Estonian and Russian schools just by changing the language of instruction. If everything else in school is done in Russian, we will not get the change we expect. Young people don't see the need for language skills, and later, when they do, they are worse off," Gabriel said.

"We need a major change of attitude in these schools. If school leaders do not believe that this change is good for young people, the result of the transition to Estonian will not be reflected in young people in the way we would like," he said.

A total of 2,481 candidates took the Estonian as a second language exam this year, with an average score of 57.3 points.

At the B2 level, 1,247 students achieved at least 60 percent of the maximum. In total, they account for 50.3 percent of all candidates. Five candidates obtained 100 points in this year's exam.

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