Education in Latvia is free and compulsory. Compulsory education includes two years of preschool education (usually starting at 5 years old) and a further nine years of primary education (usually until 15/16 years of age). In 1996, the gross primary enrollment rate was 95.8 percent, while the net primary enrollment rate was 89.5 percent."Latvia"
. ''Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor (2001)''. Bureau of International Labor Affairs,

U.S. Department of Labor The United States Department of Labor (DOL) is one of the United States federal executive departments, executive departments of the federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government. It is responsible for the administration of fede ...

(2002). ''This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

. The number of children who do not attend primary school was increasing as of 2001. In rural areas, a number of schools have been closed. The place allocated to

minority languages A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and ...

secondary education Secondary education or post-primary education covers two phases on the International Standard Classification of Education scale. Level 2 or lower secondary education (less commonly junior secondary education) is considered the second and final pha ...

after the 2004 minority school transfer to

bilingual education In bilingual education, students are taught in two (or more) languages. It is distinct from learning a second language as a subject because both languages are used for instruction in different content areas like math, science, and history. The ...

(60% in Latvian and 40% in the minority language) was an issue of protests in 2003–2004 and was opposed by

Headquarters for the Protection of Russian Schools Headquarters for the Protection of Russian Schools (russian: Штаб защиты русских школ; lv, Krievu skolu aizstāvības štābs) is a movement in Latvia for the preservation of public secondary education in Russian. Its leaders ...

and Association in Support of Russian Language Schools. According to 2010 data from

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

, 4,720 students from Latvia were enrolled in tertiary education abroad (mostly in the UK,

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

); 1,760 students from other countries were enrolled in tertiary education in Latvia (mostly from Russia,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

and Lithuania).

References

External links

Ministry of Education and Science

Information on education in Latvia, OECD
– Contains indicators and information about Latvia and how it compares to other OECD and non-OECD countries {{Education in Europe

See also

References

External links