Latvia

Reform of Education, Vision of Hope

Iveta Kestere, Arnis Strazdins and Kitija Valeina

The question of how to improve/reform education – its organisation and practice – has always been topical all around the globe. Today’s schools shape the people of tomorrow; today’s pupils will make decisions in the future and define the fate of families, communities and the whole world. Therefore, parents, teachers, statesmen and -women, and society at large have always been concerned with what children should learn today for the world of tomorrow. What do they need to know to make the world better in the future? How to prepare children for the life of tomorrow, the life no-one knows anything about today? What knowledge and skills will the first grader of today need in 12 years? What kind of person should they become?

Stories of educational reforms are stories about the ‘visions of hope’ (Kurth-Schai and Green, 2008).

Improvement of education has always been a key issue in Latvia, as elsewhere in Europe and the world. However, 27 years ago Latvia differed a lot from many other European countries. Latvia had been forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union and become one of its 15 republics. The Soviet Union was not a democratic country; it was an authoritarian state where the opinion of people was not asked for or listened to. Those who lived in the Soviet Union were not free.

People felt the lack of freedom every day: they could read only those books and watch only those movies which were permitted by the Soviet authorities; they were not allowed to go where they wished to and meet people they wanted to meet. Soviet people were isolated, disconnected from the information that was available in the democratic world outside the borders of the Soviet Union. Officials appointed by the authoritarian government strictly regulated school textbooks, curriculum and the entire school life. Schools were factories manufacturing identical “products”: people whose thinking and actions could be easily controlled and manipulated in the future.

People in Latvia endured the dictatorship of the Soviet Union for 50 years. In the end of the 1980s, the inhabitants of Latvia and other European countries occupied by the Soviet state stood up for their freedom and they won that fight. The Soviet Union collapsed, and Latvia regained its independence in 1991. But declaring independence was not enough, people had to learn to be free. They had to learn how to live in democracy. The entire life of Latvia had to be radically changed, made better, that is: reformed, and the Latvian government – a government democratically elected for the first time in many years – had to do this urgently. Reforms became a precondition for the further existence of Latvia.

In 1991 the government of Latvia developed and proclaimed many reforms, including also a very important education reform. Though they had never lived in a democratic state themselves, the authors of the reform tried to foresee what kind of people a new democratic Latvia would need. They believed that the future would require intellectually active and creative people, those who would have a public initiative and be able to apply their knowledge and skills in practice. The future Latvia should be populated by people well informed about global and local cultural heritage. Children would not have to study using identical textbooks and according to uniform curricula. Pupils and teachers would be able to decide and choose themselves what and how to study (Kalniņš, 1995). Education would be versatile, adjusted to various interests of people. And the future Latvia would be diverse too.

Though nobody had experienced this future society yet, the idea of the reform was to provide such an education that it would allow people not to get lost in a new situation, prepare them for challenges, teach how to accept these, cooperate, and solve problems in a creative manner. People should not have to be identical, manufactured according to strict standards imposed by the state.

One picture taken in a school of a small Latvian town in 1988 is symbolic. It depicts one of the first computer classes in Latvia. It was taken at the time when people started their fight for independence and the Soviet Union was shaken. People needed to adjust to entirely new circumstances. Many had lost their jobs. The store shelves were empty. Money lost its value, prices were rising. Poverty was widespread. But the picture of a computer class shows that Latvia cared about the future even at that difficult moment. The school had arranged a computer class for children to learn the most contemporary technologies of the time. Information was made available to everyone. Information is a value most highly appreciated by those who were forced to live in intellectual isolation. The computer class became a symbol of life improving, of Latvia not only being a spot on the map of Europe, but it starting its comeback to Europe at the spiritual/intellectual level too.

Educational reforms are still going on in Latvia as the future is ever changing.

Word: Reform

Number: 1991