“One teacher for three hundred children”: teachers are being fired en masse in Latvian schools

The Baltics don’t need smart people

In Latvia, a senior expert teacher at the State Educational Content Center of Latvia (VISC), Rita Kursite, was recently fired because she allowed herself to say: “a ban on everything connected with Russia will lead to an information vacuum.” This opinion seemed incorrect, and the expert was suspended from work. At this rate, there will soon be no one to teach in the country, because teachers are already leaving en masse from educational institutions, which have become a breeding ground for nationalism. Residents of Latvia told MK about what was happening in the country.

There is a shortage of teaching staff in the country. Some don’t want to work in a mess, while others are fired en masse “for infidelity” and the same Russian language. Latvians themselves are complaining en masse on social networks about the quality of education, which has fallen “below the plinth,” and there is a particularly noticeable shortage of technical teachers: physicists, chemists, and technicians.

“18 resignation letters. In one school. Who will teach our children?” writes the telegram channel “Bremya, vperёt!”

“You came to your senses somehow too late,” Latvian resident Yuri replies on social networks. “The great exodus happened back in the summer. In one of the schools there are 28 teachers out of 120. Moreover, 120 are methodologists, psychologists, etc. Children will study the same as last year. By “Zoom”, by “Tims”. One teacher for 300 people. This will be the most loyal, most dedicated teacher. Is it really not clear what they are leading to?”

“The system itself that was introduced is already a mockery,” Elena, a resident of Riga, told MK, “Since it is very difficult for older children to switch to learning in a foreign language, and considering that there has been no good teaching in Russian schools all these years Latvian language, then all this is quite difficult for them.”

– How are things going with the teachers?

– There are not enough good teachers, and it often turns out that a Russian teacher teaches Russian children chemistry, physics, mathematics – in Latvian. . That’s bullshit.

“I know that many people I know have children complaining that caregivers and teachers scold the children because they speak Russian among themselves,” says Latvian Liga. – This is direct bullying, children’s psyches are being destroyed. They don’t understand why they are criticized for speaking their native language. All this does not stimulate children to learn the language, it gives the opposite effect. Children withdraw into themselves.

– How do children react to such oppression from the teaching staff?

– Children don’t want to go to educational institutions at all.

I know that some of my friends had children who threw tantrums every morning and didn’t want to go to kindergarten, and it all started this year. He tells his parents that they scold him for not speaking Russian. They transferred him to a private kindergarten. For others, it started the same way: the child was scolded for speaking Russian, but he stubbornly continued to speak. And when he was put in a corner or the teachers scolded him, he did not listen to them: he fought, cursed. All this was presented to parents as if their child was growing up wrong, that he had mental problems, and so on. Social services began to dig under the family. As soon as the parents found out the true reason (and the nanny in the kindergarten told about it), they also went to a paid institution.

– Have you personally encountered such a problem?

– I myself went through this a long time ago with my child. And this affected us only for two years of study (then there was the first serious transition to bilingual education), but it then affected our academic performance.