Education
Since the beginning of 1990s, some Polish language schools were created besides the existing schools with Latvian and Russian language of instruction. Certain schools (e.g., Riga Dubnov Jewish Secondary school, founded in 1989, and Riga Ukrainian Secondary School, founded in 1991, which had originally used Ukrainian as language of instruction, but switched to Latvian in 1993/1994) now include in their curriculum lessons in respective minority languages. The number of Russian schools, however, is decreasing, partly due to natural demographic decline and partly due to emigration, as the following table demonstrates, with some schools with apparent viability closed.
| Number of students by language of instruction (Ministry of Education and Science) | |||||||||
| School year | 95-96 | 99-00 | 00-01 | 01-02 | 02-03 | 03-04 | 04-05 | 05-06 | 06-07 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Latvian | 203,607 | 239,163 | 242,475 | 242,183 | 237,425 | 230,212 | 214,855 | 205,189 | 194,230 |
| Russian | 132,540 | 120,925 | 116,009 | 108,454 | 101,486 | 95,841 | 84,559 | 77,471 | 70,683 |
| Others | 1513 | 1344 | 1344 | 1352 | 1397 | 1305 | 1253 | 1287 | 1198 |
| Total | 337,660 | 361,432 | 359,818 | 351,989 | 340,308 | 327,358 | 300,667 | 283,947 | 266,111 |
| % learning in Latvian | 60.3 | 66.2 | 67.4 | 68.8 | 69.8 | 70.3 | 71.5 | 72.3 | 73.0 |
There is also increasing number of minority children attending Latvian-language schools.
According to Education law, as adopted in 1998, the language of instruction in public secondary schools (Forms 10-12) had to be only Latvian since 2004. This has mostly affected Russian schools, some existing in Latvia without interruption since at least 1789. After wide protests in 2003 and 2004, the law was amended allowing to teach up to 40% of curricula in minority languages (Transition Rules) and allowing orphans to continue their education not only in Latvian, but also in the language he or she began it (Section 56).
In 2005, one judgment of the Constitutional Court (upon request of ForHRUL, NHP and LSP MPs) has declared unconstitutional the ban of public co-funding for private minority schools, another has declared the proportion "60:40" constitutional.
According to the same 1998 Education Law, the tertiary education in public colleges and universities has to be in Latvian only since 1999 (it had to be basically in Latvian since the second year, according to 1992 Law on Languages, Section 11). In fact, there still exist programmes with education in English for foreigners (Riga Technical University) or according to special laws (Riga Graduate School of Law). There is a demand for tertiary education in Russian, too: it is used, for example, in Baltic International Academy.
Latvian residents who have completed a full educational course (Forms 1-12) in Latvian, may register themselves as Latvian citizens without the usual procedure of naturalization (Section 2 of the Citizenship Law).
Read more about this topic: Language Policy In Latvia
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—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)