Free Estonian Course on Speakly — Government-Funded Language App for the Centenary (2018)

In March 2018, the centenary year of the Republic, the Estonian government launched a free Estonian-language course on the Speakly app, accessible with the code EV100. The audience was all foreigners, including Russian-speaking residents, plus an estimated 200,000 Estonian citizens abroad.
According to The PIE News (18 January 2019), more than 30,000 people had started the course within its first year. The article gives no completion, retention or proficiency data; 'started' is not 'finished'.
Speakly's co-founder claims the method makes learning up to five times easier than traditional options; this is a company claim and not independently verified. A 2020 reader comment reports the code had expired, which is unconfirmed.
Context: the OECD Observatory of Public Sector Innovation (case published 22 November 2023) describes a follow-up Estonian 'digital gateway' for adult language learning, still in development, and notes it reports no measured outcomes for the gateway itself. A cautionary case: reach was demonstrated, learning impact was not.

Read the full analysis: https://thepienews.com/free-estonian-course-hits-30000-enrolments-in-one-year/