I hereby propose a thread of frustration for those of us who live in the mother/father/genderneutralparentage land- “What does Latvia need?”

From my narrow perspective we need a rational education system peopled by people who do not blow with the political winds.

I attended a conference on inclusive education at LU the weekend before last quite wanted to cry. The basic idea was that they (LU) had German visitors who are specialists in inclusive education. The LV side gave them tours of the special schools. At the end of the week they had a small seminar to talk about what was learned. I think that the LV side was expecting nice little pats on the head. The audience was lots of special school folks, some Ministry (Education), students, a frustrated parents’ group representative (me!) and odds and ends of people who actually wanted to learn.

We had one hopeful presentation from Dita Nimante in which she mildly took special schools to task for not actually moving to contemporary education models. That was followed by Sarmite Tubele doing the usual asking questions about how realistic inclusive education is for LV. Of course her “questions” are just code for “we are not ready.” Honestly, for people who read/know anything about inclusiveness know that LV is using lack of research as an excuse to not move forward toward an inclusive model.

During the break I spoke with Germans. Their first question was “does LV understand inclusiveness at all? If so, why would they show us only special schools?”

After break we had a frustrating discussion (in the seminar) where the Ministry and special schools continued to push their medical/corrctive model and the Germans continued to be polite but frustrated. After the end of the seminar the Germans quite literally chased me down. They want more and different input regarding the development of inclusiveness in LV education.

What do others think? Why this severe limitation on the part of so many in the LV education system (unfortunately including the Minister herself) to see past the end of their bureaucratic noses and to really do something that would change LV education for the better? Goodness knows that we are in a human crisis. Statistically (according the the Ministry) something about 1/3 of 9th class students graduate lacking basic skills.