The Latvian parliament has adopted a law which allows foreign students who are left without means of living to be assisted by the social service agencies of local governments during the emergency situation and one month after its ending. Students can be assisted by a social service agency if they: are left without means of living, are staying in Latvia during Covid-19 crisis, are studying remotely, have registered their stay in a local government in Latvia, and have a temporary residence permit. If you are currently in Latvia, you can be assisted by the social service agency of the local government in which you have registered your stay. Unfortunately students…

Today the Saeima (Latvian Parliament) will view in third, i.e. final reading the proposal for amendment of Law On Institutions of Higher Education. An uproar in society has been caused by the proposal of the Minister of Education and Science Kārlis Šadurskis, which includes a stronger language regulation of study program implementation for all higher education institutions (HEI) including all colleges and private HEIs, as well as a prohibition on implementing study programs in Russian. As of last week, this new proposal has been supported in the Education, Culture and Science Committee of Saeima. The proposal calls to further implement study programs in official languages of the European Union only…

On September 12 the Latvian government, after lengthy discussions, supported the several times postponed amendments to the regulations set by the Cabinet of Ministers*, which aimed to improve the certification procedures for dental students from abroad. The new regulations provide that foreign students will no longer need to certify knowledge of the state language during the first certification process. The previous procedure foresaw that foreign students who have completed the study programme in English and are not planning on working in Latvia still could not be certified if they had not been given a certificate of knowledge of the state language of at least C1 level. Amendments approved by the…

On May 9, the government supported the proposition from the Cabinet of Ministers, which provides for the development of certification procedures for international dental students. This means that a problem, that has been continuing for several years, will be addressed regarding international students who have completed the dental programme in English, yet cannot receive their certification, because in one of the statutory clauses it is said that to fulfill the requirements and to obtain their certificate a C1 level of knowledge must be shown in the state official language (Latvian). In the meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers, which was attended by and their opinions were voiced by the representatives…