TALLINN, April 29 (RAPSI) – The Supreme Court of Estonia on Monday rejected an appeal from the Tallinn and Narva governments, upholding the Russian-language teaching ban, the court said on Tuesday.

The Estonian government earlier ordered 15 municipal high schools in the cities to discontinue teaching in the Russian language.

The court ruled that learning Estonian promotes the nation's solidarity. The ruling underlines that the adoption of Estonian as the language of tuition at high schools does not mean that no schools will teach in Russian anymore. The Supreme Court also upheld a Tallinn Circuit Court ruling that rejected an appeal from the Tallinn and Narva governments earlier this month.

Russian-language high schools (10-12 grades) gradually started teaching in Estonian on Sep. 1, 2007. This year, they are expected to bring the ratio of subjects taught in Russian and Estonian at Russian schools to 40-60. Estonia has 63 Russian-language schools.

The municipal governments of Tallinn and Narva, which have large Russian-speaking populations, have petitioned the government to allow 15 high schools to continue teaching in Russian, citing the Basic School and Upper Secondary School Act. Their petition was rejected. They appealed the decision at the Tallinn Circuit Court.