Estonian Maritime Academy of Tallinn University of Technology (Estonian: TTÜ Eesti Mereakadeemia, or EMERA) is a vocational university in Estonia. It is one of the schools of Tallinn University of Technology and it is the only educational institution in Estonia that offers professional higher education and Master’s level education in the maritime field. The university is located in the capital Tallinn but also has two centres in Saaremaa. In addition to higher education, the school contributes to research, provides training and offers services. The Academy also holds a one of a kind Simulator Centre and has a whole dedicated floor of hi-tech laboratories. History The first marine school in Estonia was founded in 1715 in Tallinn, later the school was founded in Narva as well. In these so-called calculation-schools, the sailors and shipbuilders studied different subjects, including navigation. In 1880, a school was founded in Tallinn for children of the port factory and workshop staff. The better graduates of the school received the right to work as deck officers on ships. In the second half of the 19th century, a number of Estonian maritime schools were founded. The first of these was the Heinaste Maritime School (1864-1916), where the teaching languages were Estonian, Russian and Latvian. Other maritime schools followed in other cities as well: in Narva (1873 – 1918), Paldiski (1876 – 1916), Käsmu (1884 – 1931), Kuressaare (1891 – 1915), (1919 – 1928), (1942 – 1944), and Pärnu (1919 – 1922), (1945 – 1989). The Tallinn Maritime School, the predecessor of the Estonian Maritime Academy of TUT, was founded in 1919. At the same time, a class of engineer officers was opened at the Tallinn University of Applied Sciences (Estonian: Tallinna Tehnikum), which in 1920 became the Tallinn Ship Engineer School and, in 1935, was merged with the Tallinn Maritime School. In 1945, the Tallinn Marine Fisheries Technicum was established, which was renamed the Tallinn Fisheries Technical School in 1956, the Tallinn Fish Industry Marine School in 1965, and the Tallinn Marine College in 1989. During the period of Soviet occupation from 1945 to 1991, the Estonian Maritime Schools belonged to the unified maritime education system of the USSR, and therefore the maritime education of Estonia was predominantly in Russian. In the newly independent Estonia, Estonian is again the language of instruction. At the beginning of the 1990s, three educational institutions in the maritime education field were provided