The €14m project for developing learning materials and training teachers by Latvia's National Center for Education was turned down early this year due to inaccuracies and finally okayed last week following review, according to unofficial information by De Facto.
"Thinking, talking, cooperating, and looking for answers to the reasons why. It's very different from the model in our tradition," teacher Dace Namsone said, highlighting the differences of the new approach. She is head of the Vecumnieki secondary school where competency-based learning has been brought in partially.
It is planned that next year 80 schools will start testing the new approach, to be introduced in in full by 2023.
In fall 2018 the new model will be introduced in grades 1 and 4, and then in two more grades each year, overhauling learning content for all schoolchildren by 2023.
It's planned that 6000 teachers will be trained to teach under the new model and new learning material will be worked out, including for children with disabilities.
Latvia's education system is seeing an array of changes with ongoing plans to increase teachers' wages and make kids start school sooner.
