Earlier this week, a campaign in support of small schools took place across Latvia. The protest is linked to the plan by Education and Science Ministry to change the teacher wage financing model. It foresees that the state will not allocate funds to a municipality based on how many students are in that municipality altogether, but instead allocate funds to each school separately.
As a result of this change, more small schools could be closed rapidly, as the municipality will not have the freedom to allocate more funding in favor of keeping those schools.
Commenting on the plans and protests, the PM said that it must be understood why the financing model is being changed. "We don't need schools for the sake of having schools. We need schools for our children, so our children have a high-quality education, so they can be smart in chemistry, in the more and more demanding digital field, so they can in the future learn about artificial intelligence. And the question is whether all schools can offer this base of education," said Siliņa.
She said that the main goal of the 'optimization' of the school network is 'high-quality education and individual approach' (even though moving students from several schools into one, as might happen with closures, seems to suggest the opposite to an individual approach).
"The way it is now, we cannot continue. We need solutions," said Siliņa.
