On 7 November, President Edgars Rinkēvičs signed and sent to the Saeima two legislative initiatives calling for amendments to the Law on Education and amendments to the Law on Public Holidays, Commemorative Days and Days of Significance.
"School safety in educational institutions must be a priority, without which a quality education process is unthinkable. Teachers, pupils and other staff have the right to feel safe in an educational establishment. I believe that the legislator should take action to include a clear regulation in the Education Law for cases where there are reasonable concerns about the threat of violence or other significant security risks in an educational institution, which may be caused by dangerous substances and objects that may be in the possession of a learner. In order to prevent such cases in a timely manner, I propose to include in the law an explicit regulation granting the head of the educational establishment the right to search the personal belongings of the learner. The legislator, balancing the right of educational institutions to act and the right of learners to rely on reasonable protection of their rights and interests, must find a solution that would not allow arbitrariness on either side," the letter of the President of Latvia to the Presidium of the Saeima emphasised.
The Education Law already contains a regulation that requires parents to inform the head of the educational institution about the child's health condition and any other circumstances that may affect the education programme and the persons involved in it. However, in practice, there are cases when parents have failed to provide this information to the educational institution, and such failure to provide information has had a significant impact on the acquisition of the educational programme and the persons involved in it.
"I regret to conclude that the obligation of parents, included in the Education Law, to provide essential information about their child to the educational institution is often not fulfilled without legal liability. Therefore, I propose that the law should also recognise as an administrative offence in the field of education the conduct of parents in failing to provide information to an educational institution as required by the legislation," the letter of the President of Latvia states.
By submitting amendments to the Law on Public Holidays, Commemorative Days and Days of Significance, the President of Latvia calls for International Teachers' Day to be observed on 5 October. International Teachers' Day has been celebrated on this date since 1994 on the initiative of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). The date was chosen in honour of the Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers adopted by UNESCO and the International Labour Organisation on 5 October 1966.
"Until now, Teachers' Day in Latvia has been celebrated on the first Sunday in October, which has led to uneven practices in celebrating this day and often to confusion among both students and their parents about when to honour teachers. In order to unify the approach to celebrating Teachers' Day in Latvia and thus highlight the prestige and importance of this profession, I call for this day to be set on 5 October in line with International Teachers' Day," reads the letter of the President of Latvia to the Presidium of the Saeima.