State Audit Criticizes Schools in Latvia: Children Are Not Provided with Equal Quality Education 0 12

Although there is a unified standard for basic education in the country and schools are accredited, the volume of education, assessment approaches, and support provided in different schools vary significantly, which affects students' results and their opportunities to continue their education at the next level.

As of October 1, 2025, more than 183,600 students were enrolled in basic education programs in Latvia across 583 schools. Local government spending on general education has increased in recent years to over 900 million euros, but this has not ensured equal quality across all schools, auditors noted.

The audit found that the basic education standard allows for significant deviations in the number of teaching hours for subjects and their implementation. As a result, the number of math lessons in different schools can vary by up to 750 hours, which significantly impacts students' preparedness, including for centralized exams.

Moreover, in practice, even the planned number of hours is often not realized, further deteriorating students' preparation. For example, over three years, there were up to 46% fewer math classes, up to 27% fewer Latvian language classes, and up to 24% fewer English language classes than provided for.

For 9th grade exam subjects, the number of hours is allowed to increase by up to 40%. At the same time, for other subjects, it is often significantly reduced, auditors point out. For instance, in design and technology, the number of hours can be halved, in social sciences and history by 14%, in some cases even by two-thirds, and in computer science by up to 40%. The standard also allows for the integration of subjects into other disciplines, and the audit revealed cases of complete integration of certain subjects.

Such insufficiently controlled flexibility creates a situation where students' knowledge and skills largely depend on the decisions of individual schools, auditors note. Furthermore, data on changes in the number of hours and subject integration is not publicly available, so students and their legal representatives are usually not informed of these differences when choosing a school.

The State Audit also points to problems in assessing academic achievements. Schools lack a unified and effective system for timely identification of children's strengths and weaknesses. Over three academic years, state diagnostic or monitoring assessments were not provided for 3rd and 6th grades to objectively evaluate academic performance. An increasing number of local governments have begun developing their own diagnostic assessments, which auditors view positively; however, this has led to an ineffective situation where almost half of the local governments spent their own resources on developing separate solutions, although a unified tool at the state level was initially intended.

The so-called formative assessment — evaluation of academic achievements without grades, used in everyday educational processes — has also been criticized. The goal of this approach is to provide information about acquired knowledge and further educational tasks. However, in schools, this approach is implemented inconsistently across all subjects, auditors found. Often, formative assessment is conducted only shortly before a test, depriving the opportunity to help the student improve their knowledge in a timely manner.

The State Audit highlights the accessibility of support staff as particularly problematic. According to auditors' calculations, on average, each student receives only 14–18 minutes of psychologist support per week and about 11 minutes per week from a speech therapist. There is also no certainty that the new funding model "Program in School" is based on the actual needs of students for support and that the state target grant provides a sufficient number of specialists.

The school accreditation system has also been critically evaluated. Regardless of the school's assessment, schools are accredited for six years, which does not protect children from prolonged education in schools with significant deficiencies, auditors explain.

The State Audit indicates that the planning of education development in Latvia is fragmented, and the tools for monitoring education quality created with the support of European Union funds are still not fully utilized in practice.

The State Audit presented ten recommendations to the Ministry of Education and Science, the implementation of which by 2031 aims to improve control over the volume of education, ensure support staff, implement diagnostic assessments, and improve the school accreditation system.

It is also noted that the planning of education development in Latvia is carried out at different levels, and there is insufficient interconnection between the state, local governments, and schools. Planning documents do not always establish clear and measurable performance indicators, and goals and priorities at different levels may differ.

Starting from September 1, 2024, local governments are tasked with developing strategies for the development of the educational ecosystem. The audit found that methodological support and digital tools for preparing these strategies are provided in insufficient volume, leading several local governments to engage external service providers, spending nearly half a million euros. A significant portion of these contracts was awarded to one commercial entity, auditors indicate.