The Riga City Council allows the joining of Russian kindergartens to Latvian ones
“The transition to education in the state language took three years, but in reality, only from this year is education being conducted entirely in Latvian. It is clear that it will take some time before those children who are studying only in Latvian this year and previously studied bilingually can integrate into the Latvian-speaking environment,” he said.
He added the following: “This is the budget priority of ‘Unity’ number 1. We have a package to strengthen the implementation of Latvian identity in schools. The focus will be on the principal – we will give them the opportunity to receive funding and divide the class into groups so that language acquisition can be better in classes with fewer children.”
In addition, schools are promised funding for extracurricular activities, such as discussion clubs, where they can invite notable people, and for trips to the cinema.
The vice-mayor also promises that “this includes the goal of promoting Latvian identity in kindergartens, for example, if there is currently one teacher and two assistants in a group, it will move towards having two teachers and one assistant so that the teachers can work more purposefully with the children.”
Kirsis believes that good knowledge of Latvian should be provided to children already in kindergarten because this is the foundation – in school, we later struggle with what happened earlier.
“These are the directions we are heading towards. And it is clear that this will take time. In April, the Ministry of Education will organize diagnostic work throughout Latvia, then we will see how it goes – we will carry out corrective actions, there will be a reorganization of the school network, for example, kindergartens for national minorities, where enrollment is lower, will be joined to Latvian kindergartens. Where there are problems, we will observe them closely. This is the number 1 priority on the agenda of the current city council – we need to unite the nation; the more divided we are, the weaker we will be.”