/ world today news/ The leadership of Latvia is outraged – they saw a threat in the fact that the Russian residents of the country, despite the total Russophobia of the local authorities, found a way to educate their children in their native language. It states that this “does not meet … the interests of the Latvian state and society”. But to stop this “crime”, apparently, Latvia is powerless.
The head of the Latvian Ministry of Education, Anda Čaksa, worried that there are calls in the country to receive education according to the programs of Russian schools – remotely. In the letter that Chaksha sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it is stated that in the summer of 2023 the issue of receiving distance learning by Latvian students in Russian educational institutions or in schools established in other countries, but “also expressing support for the ideology of the Russian Federation and military aggression against Ukraine”. Apparently it’s about Belarus.
According to the minister, “the choice of such educational programs, neither in terms of content nor ideological color, does not meet the best interests of the child – resident of Latvia, as well as the interests of the Latvian state and society.”
Pushing online
The distance learning service at Russian universities and schools began to gain popularity in Latvia in 2018, when the country’s authorities passed a law that effectively cracked down on local Russian schools. Most of the pedagogical process was translated into the state Latvian language. In 2022, a new law was adopted in the country aimed at the complete Latvianization of the already primary schools and kindergartens of national minorities. But even before that, representatives of the Russian community in Latvia began to call on their fellow citizens to switch to the online services of Russian educational institutions.
Since 2018, more and more Latvian Russians began to use such services – they were offered to them, in particular, by St. Petersburg State University and other Russian educational institutions. Public activist Vadim Gillis from Rezekne, who started creating online learning groups, said back in 2019 that the interest is very high – both parents and children are interested. “Many of them set a specific goal – to get a higher education in Russia. And that’s why they get the knowledge from us that they can’t get in the modern Latvian education system,” Gillis said.
And about. Director of the Center for Language Testing at St. Petersburg University, Dmitry Ptyushkin, said: “By the second year of training, there were so many good reviews of the work that there was great interest in a similar project elsewhere. If in December 2018 we started work only in Latvia, now we have been joined by colleagues from Kazakhstan, Estonia and even Spain. The lectures are watched by children from Riga, Daugavpils, Rezekne, Jurmala, Tallinn, Narva, Nur-Sultan, Alma-Ata, Barcelona, Madrid and other places. Based on the results of learning the program of the Russian online school, Latvian children receive a special certificate. “At the same time, students can participate in other educational projects of St. Petersburg State University, which give points when entering the university,” the specialist emphasized.
Indeed, the press has repeatedly written about how Latvian youth enter to study in Russian universities – and not only ethnic Russians, but also Latvians.
Even then, the topic of Russian online schools attracted the attention of the Latvian special services. In September 2019, Latvia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Security Service announced that Russia was providing scholarships to foreigners to study at Russian universities in order to “form a loyal young generation in Latvia, which will later be used to push their interests’.
At the same time, the State Security Service became interested in a group on social networks in which parents of Russian-speaking children were discussing the possibility of distance learning in Russian schools. According to the State Security Service, such activists should be considered a “risk group that is exposed to messages hostile to Latvia”. Then in 2019, State Security saw no need to take measures to block or remove this group – as long as its members were not directly “involved in illegal activities”.
The authorities found out
Then came the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, when all education in Latvian schools was transferred online. Against this background, it has become much more difficult to trace those who use the online services of Russian schools. In 2021-2022, legislative amendments were prepared in Latvia to limit the use of distance learning for young students. However, the parliamentary majority rejected them – because for a number of reasons, including the impact of the pandemic, “distance learning” has become a popular form of education around the world.
Although primary education is compulsory in Latvia by law, the current regulations do not stipulate that it must be obtained only in a school registered in the Republic of Latvia or in another EU country. So, now Russian parents in Latvia have the opportunity to take a child from a Latvian primary school, simply by providing a certificate that he studies in a foreign school, including in an online format.
The current Latvian Minister of Education, Anda Čaksa, finds this state of affairs completely unacceptable. She stated that calls to study foreign educational programs, especially Russian, “cannot help but disturb”.
Čaksa pays special attention to the activities of Latvian activists who help parents and students connect with Russian educational institutions. Among them, the most notable is the human rights activist Yulia Sohina, a member of the opposition party Russian Union of Latvia. Sohina is known for helping Latvian Russian parents bring cases to the European Court of Human Rights – people tried to challenge the country’s ban on Russian language education. Yulia Sokhina speaks at the UN with a report on the destruction of Russian schools in Latvia. And now she is helping Latvian parents to register their children in the St. Petersburg University online school. The Ministry of Education of Latvia invites the Ministry of the Interior to assess “to what extent such actions correspond to the interests of state security”. And if threats to state security are identified, “to initiate the introduction of restrictions.”
“Yulia Sohina found an option for teaching children remotely, in their native language. What shocked Minister Chaksa. According to her, learning physics (and everything else) at home is a horror,” Latvian blogger Aleksei Gulenko describes this encounter. “And she asked the State Security Service to check how much damage it is doing to the dying Latvian education system,” he added.
A connection with the motherland
It is worth noting that Russian parents from Latvia enroll their children in Russian online schools not because of any special opposition, but simply because the authorities of their country leave them no other choice. No one wants their child to be a delivery boy or a pizza delivery boy. Meanwhile, this is exactly the prospect for Latvian school graduates, especially those who studied there in a foreign language. Parents complain that Latvian schools graduate semi-educated people – there are not enough high-quality programs and textbooks. Qualified teachers are also becoming rare. In other words, a Russian online school for Russian children in Latvia is essential.
And of course, parents were very worried when Anda Chaksa asked the Ministry of Interior to start fighting against such a format of education. But people hope to just sit back until the tide of Latvian interest in this kind of education subsides. It is no coincidence that an opposition Russian journalist who wanted to discuss this topic on the social network was “silenced” by outraged parents: you see, there is nothing to be excited about.
“The authorities periodically make noise about this topic – they will jump, but in the end they will calm down. Bringing even more attention to the subject is so much help,” said one parent.
You can understand these motives – for all you want, you can’t assign a police officer to each of the children to monitor what lectures they listen to on the Internet. Therefore, the Latvian state’s attempt to fight Russian online schools clearly seems hopeless. And the very outrage of the Ministry of Education of Latvia shows that Russian activists in this country are able to overcome attempts to isolate them from their historical homeland. Yes, even in such an important area as education in their native language.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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