Latvia

Abstract

The first schools in Latvia were opened in monasteries and churches: the Dome church school, for example, was founded in 1211. However, the first general schools for Latvian children were founded in the second half of the sixteenth century in Riga. The development of education in Latvia was substantially facilitated by the teacher seminaries founded in the nineteenth century, 1839 in Valmiera and 1840 in Irlava, where teachers received education for work in schools with Latvian as the language of instruction. From the second half of the nineteenth century, alongside German and Latvian schools, schools taught in Russian were opened, as well as a teacher seminary and a polytechnic. Many prominent cultural workers and writers in Latvia studied in Germany and at higher educational establishments in St. Petersburg and Moscow. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the movement of New Latvians began, characterized by the advocacy of the development of ethnic national culture and the Latvian language, which was manifested in the syllabus of educational institutions and the language of instruction. The influence of these educational institutions on the development of Latvia’s culture increased considerably: according to the data of 1897 population census, 79.7 % of citizens in Latvia could read and write. From 1919, a unified system of general education in the mother tongue with a 6-year primary school and a 4-year secondary school was introduced. In the same year, the first university in Riga was opened with 3,000 students. After the Second World War, the education system in Latvia developed as a part of the Soviet system with unified principles and programs. At the end of the 1980s, 90 % of pupils, who had started their education in Year 1, obtained general secondary education. In the period of sociopolitical changes since 1991, compulsory secondary education has been reduced to 9 years.