Everybody who resides in Estonia on a permanent basis should feel comfortable doing so, because it’s their home – their country, their city, their town, their village...their family. Undoubtedly one of the most important things in being able to communicate with people in the country and being able to work and study here is an ability to speak the national language. Over the years the Estonian Integration and Migration Foundation Our People (MISA), and its forerunners – the Integration Foundation and the Estonian Migration Foundation have developed more and more ways for those living here to learn Estonian, and will continue to do so.

 

MISA has offered a variety of language-learning options: professional Estonian studies; reimbursement of study costs; workplace exchanges between Estonian and Russian-speaking employees; language teaching in institutions; free language studies for citizens of third countries; language studies for Estonians who have returned to their fatherland; and more. A large amount of study and teaching materials has been produced to support these language-learning opportunities, too.

 

Language teaching is financed through the European Social Fund and the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals, as well as from the national budget via the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education and Research.