Education Ministry's proposal would mean destroying the existing education system - Latvian Association of Local Governments

RIGA - Inara Dundure, advisor on education and culture at the Latvian Association of Local and Regional Governments, believes that the Education and Science Ministry's latest proposal on reorganization of the system of educational institutions would mean destroying the existing education system.

"If we look at this proposal of the Education and Science Ministry, in practice it means to completely break the existing education system, which has been built step by step in Latvia," Dundure said in an interview with Latvian Television.

According to the ministry's strategy, a new school network is to be developed in Latvia, and it will be the state that will determine where grades seventh to twelfth should be. This means that municipalities will not be able to plan school modernization projects or what investments to make in a school, explained Dundure.

"We did a new analysis of the school network, and we see how the population in the regions has decreased. In fact, this has created a situation where young families, even those that return to Latvia, have to think twice whether they can go back to their hometown because the nearest school is very far away," said Dundure.

Over the past 23 years, a total of 401 schools were closed in Latvia. In the 2021-22 school year, 166 schools were reorganized.