The signatories of the document were Mari Education Minister Galina Shvetsova and Estonian Education Minister Mailis Reps.
According to the document, the cooperation will include research and teaching, the exchange of training methods and technologies, summer exchange programs for schoolchildren, and information exchange between rural schools.
"I saw that serious efforts were taken in the republic, and teachers were trained at a high level," Reps said. "I received professional answers to my questions. Mari schools have problems, but they are not language problems."
Reps also said she had come to Mari El to see how rural and urban schools and kindergartens worked, and to speak with ordinary people.
"People in the republic work a lot and do everything possible for the children. I made numerous teaching discoveries here that people in Estonia have forgotten or replaced with borrowings from Europe," the minister said.
Reps said she had visited three regions where 75%, 82%, and 90% of the people spoke the Mari language. She also visited a school and a kindergarten where children were taught in Mari. "People are not afraid to speak Mari; many of them speak Mari in the streets," Reps said.
The memorandum was signed on the sidelines of the 10th International Congress of Finno-Ugric experts being held in Yoshkarola August 15-21.
