Erelin Zirk, a resident of Ida-Viru County who wanted to participate in state-supported adult continuing education, was dismayed to find that the course she was interested in was not available in Estonian.

"I own a restaurant and wanted to learn about menu and cost calculation at the Ida-Viru County Vocational Education Center. It turned out that it was only available in Russian," said Zirk.

Currently, out of the state-funded continuing education courses offered at the vocational education center, 50 are in Russian and 17 in Estonian. Trainers justify this by pointing to the poor Estonian language skills of many residents in the region.

"Nearly 70 percent of the residents of Ida-Viru County are of Russian ethnicity. Among them, 40 percent speak Estonian at a basic level. If we only offer courses in Estonian, we would exclude a large portion of the population from training opportunities," said Anneli Luik, program manager at the Education and Youth Board.

"When adult learners reach a level where they can speak Estonian, we can begin to serve them more in Estonian. Our current goal is to provide opportunities and support to Russian-speaking adult learners who need to find a new place in the job market," added Kristi Aron, director of studies at the Ida-Viru County Vocational Education Center.

Erelin Zirk believes that focusing on Estonian-language courses would encourage Russian speakers to learn the state language more quickly.

"I have many Russian-speaking acquaintances who complain that there is no Estonian language environment. If we don't create it, it won't exist. I can't imagine how Ida-Viru County is supposed to become Estonian-speaking if we continue to foster learned helplessness," said Erelin Zirk.

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