Around 1,000 teachers could leave education system due to Covid-19 safety requirements - Muizniece

  • 2021-07-22
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - In the next school year, when it is planned to require mandatory Covid-19 safety certificates for educators, about 1,000 teachers could leave the education system, Minister of Education Anita Muizniece (New Conservative Party) admitted in an interview with TV3 morning, referring to her intuitive feelings.

According to the data of the Ministry of Education and Science, in the 2020/2021 school year there were about 56,000 teachers working in Latvia - less than 30,000 were general and special education teachers, about 12,000 - pre-school education teachers, and about 5,600 university lecturers.

Muizniece thinks that the Saeima will make a responsible decision in August and support the government's position on requiring teachers to have a Covid-19 safety certificate, but respectively, one can expect some teachers to leave the education system.

Speaking about the survey conducted by the Latvian Trade Union of Education and Science Workers, in which a large part of the respondents expressed a critical position against vaccination against Covid-19, Muizniece assessed that it was not really clear what the union wanted to achieve with this. She noted that it should rather be working in the opposite direction, namely explaining the importance of vaccination to educators, rather than looking for arguments against vaccination.

Compulsory vaccination of students is not currently on the agenda, the minister added.

Muizniece, however, hopes that the education sector will pull through and in September it will be possible to resume full-time and in-class learning.