Education and Science, Innovations, Latvia

He said that the Ombudsman's Office had received several complaints from parents, who said their children were spending entire weekend doing homework. At the end of the last school year the Ombudsman's Office had already prepared a letter to the competent authorities on the subject but had not sent it.

Jansons said it was wrong to require children to do excessive amounts of homework because they had to have time for leisure and extracurricular activities.

As reported, Education and Science Minister Karlis Sadurskis has proposed cutting down on homework for Latvia's schoolchildren and considers introducing an extra week of school holidays in spring semester. He said that student workload was very high in Latvia.

"We have excessive student workload in all age groups. While it is understood that adults need to rest after work, in the case of schoolchildren there is also extracurricular education and homework after school," Sadurskis said.