Language Like a Tram: In Riga It Moves Forward, In Liepaja It Stops at Every Station

The State Education Quality Service has released a report revealing a shocking truth: it turns out that for children to learn in Latvian, you need teachers who know the Latvian language. Who would have thought!

The report concludes that the reform is progressing with "gradual progress," which in Riga's context means - some children already speak Latvian, others are still looking for a dictionary. About 8,300 students are involved in this linguistic experiment, but as experts themselves admit, "different educational institutions understand the Latvian environment differently." What does this mean? Well, for example, in Riga a Latvian environment is when the teacher says "good day" and everything else happens in English.

The biggest challenges, according to the report data, have been identified in Riga and Daugavpils. But what can you expect from cities where even adults often search for Latvian words on Google Translate? Liepaja doesn't have such problems - here the only tram has been running on the same tracks for a hundred years, and no one has tried to reprogram it in another language.

"We have 40 percent speech therapist vacancies," officials complain. But why do we need speech therapists? Maybe because in half the schools children are still learning to pronounce the letter "r" in their native language, not to mention Latvian. As one teacher from Liepaja Central High School says: "We don't have problems with the Latvian language - we have problems with children not being able to speak at all."

The state has allocated 3.4 million euros for this reform, of which only 75 percent has been used. The reason? Shortage of specialists. It turns out it's not so easy to find teachers who know both the Latvian language and how to work with children, and are also willing to work for a salary that doesn't exceed a Riga café waiter's income. But in Liepaja it's long been known - if you want to get something done, do it yourself. That's why here children learn Latvian from grandmothers who tell fairy tales about times when words cost less than gasoline.