14.06.2012
Recently the Minister of Education of Estonia, Yaaku Aaviksoo, received a request from a deputy of the Parliament Centre Party, demanding clarification about the language, taught to young Estonians in the Russian language lessons.
In the autumn the minister has already had to give a formal explanation on the quality of the educational materials presented in textbooks. He admitted the existence of a large number of problems and shortcomings in this area and promised to investigate and rectify the situation.
In the current request deputies provided quotations from the Russian language textbooks for students of 12th grade in Estonian schools. It was found that textbooks emphasized a lot on the vocabulary of drug addicts: " Pot smoking young people stand out in North-East Estonia.Young people in the vast majority cannot find money for drinks and therefore they use the cheapest available think. They sniff gasoline and toluene, buy ecstasy on all gathered money. They can not be found at home, as they are constantly looking for places where you can easily cork the air."
Member of Parliament of Estonia, Yana Toom, initiator of this request, explained that It was difficult for them to select a particular quote: "We had to select some text, characterizing the situation, since it is impossible to attach all found texts”. However, Ms. Toom have attached put the scandalous book so that the Minister could thoroughly examine it.
The textbook teaches such words as "cant," "huckster", "prick", "raw opium". Deputies are particularly interested in how an excellent knowledge of this kind of language will help Estonian youth in integrating into the global community and how editors of children's books have allowed such topics to be included in the first place.
