The protection of education in the Russian language is the priority for our party. That is why three people from our list of candidates – Inna Djeri, Julia Sohina and Vladimir Buzaev – attended the meeting of the Saeima Commission on Education held on September 14 as they are developing the amendments to the Law on Education which the Saeima is to review in the third reading. The third reading does not allow to introduce the conceptual changes so it was necessary to defend ”what was available”.
Inna Djeri spoke up in defence of the proposal to, at least, exempt private schools from switching to the Latvian language, arguing that all existing international standards and specific recommendations that Latvia has ever received require our “linguists” not to touch private schools.
Vladimir Buzaev spoke up to keep a possibility of studying in their native language for disabled children who have problems with learning in their native language. He also referred to the trial he has initiated at the Constitutional Court against forcing
Vladimir Buzaev advocated the idea of leaving the opportunity to study in their native language for disabled children, who also study in their native language with difficulty. He noted that at the trial initiated by him in the Constitutional Court against the enforcement of the Latvian language in kindergartens in which both Inna and Julia acted together with their children as claimants, those teachers who were invited there to testify were not afraid to state that those children who have developmental issues should communicate in their native language.
A number of deputies on behalf of the governmental coalition proposed to give children the right to receive individual consultations outside their main classes which caused the most heated debates. Julia and Inna explained that this proposal would remain an impossible dream due to the chronic shortage of teachers. Vladimir described this hipocritical proposal as ”an individual approach towards the collective rape” and stated that some representatives of the ruling coaltion are more far-sighted than others and want to use the “individual approach” as a trump card in the trials initiated by us at the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee. Nevertheless, opposing Karlis Shadurkis who tried to eliminate even such a small compromise in favour of national minories, Vladimir Buzaev said that there are no trifles when it concerns children’s rights and he stated his support to the amendment. The Commission voted in favour for the amendment.
It is likely that the the third reading of the law is to be held on September 22. However, the government should be aware that they will have to deal with a number of obstacles in reaching their goal of making Latvia “fully Latvian”, both inside and outside Latvia.
