Education and Science, Latvia

The parliament rejected all proposals for alterations to the education reform submitted by the lawmakers from the opposition Harmony party.

As reported, the Latvian parliament upheld the bill in the first reading in late February. For the education reform to take effect, the bills needs to be adopted in the third (final) reading.

The draft legislative amendments provide for a gradual transition to Latvian as the sole language of instruction in schools from September 1, 2019, until spring 2022.

Already in preschools, starting from the age of five, new education guidelines will be introduced in 2019/2020 school year, providing for a bigger role of the Latvian language in the study process.

A new bilingual education model will be introduced in grades 1-6, ensuring that at least 50% of the subjects are taught in Latvian, and in grades 7-9, ensuring that at least 80% of the study contents is in Latvian in 2019/2020. The final exams for the 9th grade pupils will be held entirely in Latvia.

Starting from 2020/2021 school year all general education subjects in grades 10 and 11 will be taught only in the Latvian language, while children of ethnic minorities will continue learning their native language, literature and subjects related to culture and history in the respective minority language.

Starting from 2021/2022 school year all general education subjects in high school (grades 10-12) will be taught only in the Latvian language, while children of ethnic minorities will continue learning their native language, literature and subjects related to culture and history in the respective minority language.