Due to increasing immigration Estonia is becoming increasingly multilingual and multicultural, and general education schools have faced several related challenges in recent years.

New immigrants come to Estonia for different reasons and with diverse perspectives, and many factors can affect their educational attainment and academic and social performance. Many come from relatively similar educational systems, and even from the same linguistic area, but also from very different countries of origin that have wildly different educational systems. Further, migrant children arrive at different ages, and for many - especially those whose migration was forced - it is not uncommon for them to have been out of education for a long time.

Although migrant children’s backgrounds differ, children of recent migrants do have many similar needs: for information, support, and acceptance in particular. Many also need to learn the main language in which schooling is delivered in their new country.

General education schools in Estonia have very different experiences with teaching and supporting newcomer children – some have been welcoming newcomer migrant students for many years, others have never had any. Additionally, attitudes towards the admission of these children in the first place can range greatly, from supportive, to cautious, even to dismissive. There is also wide variation in schools’ awareness of the resources and support systems available for their teaching of newcomer students, some of which tend to be overused while others are underused. Some teachers have a solid and supportive network (either inside or outside the school) that they can use to seek advice; others do not. The current state of preparedness of Estonian schools and school educators is therefore highly variable, and there are still relatively few comprehensive studies mapping this situation. 

This study therefore looks at how Estonian schools cope when it comes to supporting the adaptation of a new immigrant child to Estonian general education school, and analyses how these newcomer students fare in learning the Estonian language.