Education and Science, Latvia

Referring to the interim results of a study about the optimal school network development model for Latvia, the prime minister said that education quality was low in a number of schools, including in the capital city Riga, which would mean closing of high school classes.

When asked to comment on the statement by Riga Mayor Nils Usakovs  that no schools would be closed in Riga, Kucinskis said that everybody had to abide by the law otherwise the Latvian state would follow Estonia's suit.

"In Estonia, secondary education - salaries to teachers and the infrastructure - is financed by the state, thus ensuring education quality. If the local governments cannot cope with this task, the central government might be financing secondary education in the future," the Latvian government said.

Latvian Education and Science Minister Karlis Sadurskis  said at the presentation of the first interim report about development of the optimal school network for Latvia that currently there was a number of schools which should not be allowed to exist in modern society because of poor education quality.

He also said that optimization of the school network was not about closing schools but about changing the level of education they provided, transforming high schools into elementary schools and elementary schools into pre-schools.