Education and Science, Forum, Latvia, Legislation

The working session on the rights of persons belonging to national minorities included a panel discussion on the policy and practice of bilingual education in Europe. The discussion was directed toward highlighting the positive experiences in the field of education in Latvia and other countries, like Croatia and Estonia.

The discussion gave an opportunity to explore best practices being implemented in these countries in respect to the introduction and development of bilingual education, as well as the findings of researchers concerning the impact of bilingual learning on equal opportunities in education internationally. The participants also discussed further steps and changes required to make the existing bilingual education systems most effective at schools for national minorities.

The OSCE’s Human Dimension Implementation Meeting is Europe's largest annual human rights and democracy conference, bringing together representatives both from the member states’ competent institutions and non-governmental organisations. The Latvian delegation was headed by Viktors Makarovs, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ambassador Bahtijors Hasans, Head of the Permanent Representation of Latvia to the UN, OSCE and other international organisations in Vienna.