Nil Ushakov Facebook account
In opinion of the Russian-speaking Mayor of Riga Nil Ushakov, the bilingual education in Lativa keeps considerable potential. In his interview to PRESS.LV, he commented on the results of the centralized exams in the Latvian schools comparing them with the results of schools for national minorities. Following the results of the exams, graduates of the Russian schools did mathematics, chemistry and biology better, whereas graduates of the Latvian schools were better at physics. The difference was also seen in the results of the Latvian language exams, however this difference is not crucial, according to Ushakov, as non-Latvians do not speak the Latvian language as native.
Such results are the best evidence in favor of the present bilingual education, the Riga Mayor believes.
Ushakov has sharply criticized the educational reorganization initiated by the Ministry of Education of Latvia. “We will fight for keeping and reinforcing the bilingual education and for transition to three-lingual education. Our children graduating the school should speak at least three languages,” he claimed. As the Russkiy Mir Foundation reported earlier, this reorganization implies transfer of the schools of national minorities, mainly Russian schools, to the Latvian language of studying.
Another notorious draft approved by the Latvian Parliament and signed by the President of Latvia bans teaching in the Russian language at private universities of Latvia. Ushakov called this draft the higher degree of degradation and added that implementation of this law would disrupt the export potential of the Latvian education.
The similar statement was made the day before by another Latvian politician – Mayor of Ventspils Aivars Lembergs, who called official politics of suppressing rights of the Russian-speaking population of the country as totalitarian.
Russkiy Mir
