Education and Science, Latvia, Legislation, Society

The ministry has published the data from the national education information education system which show that at the beginning of the school year on September 1, 2015, there were 142 schools with less than 70 pupils, including 17 primary schools, 120 elementary schools and three secondary schools. All these schools together have 6,716 pupils.

The smallest of the primary schools is in Konstantinova in Dagda county in south-eastern Latvia – it has only 11 pupils. Among elementary schools, the school in Jurkalne, Ventspils county in north-western Latvia, has the smallest number of pupils – 13. The smallest of the secondary schools is Mezotne Boarding School in southern Latvia that has 39 pupils.

In order to encourage the local governments to optimize their school networks, the ministry has proposed different coefficients depending on the number of pupils in the new draft model for teachers’ wages.