The government and local and regional governments have not created the prerequisites that would guarantee equally high-quality primary education in the school closest to the place of residence, as a result of which children acquire primary education with significantly different opportunities and results in Latvia, as the State Audit Office of Latvia has concluded in an audit. There is a single standard for primary education, laws and regulations are observed, and schools are accredited; however, differences exist in practice in school such as a number of teaching hours, assessment of student performance and provision of support that can affect the quality of education and student growth significantly. In their turn, accreditation process, educational development planning and quality monitoring tools do not form the basis for safeguarding high-quality primary education currently.
IN BRIEF
- As of 1 October 2025, there were 183,659 students studying in primary education curricula (grades 1–9) in 583 schools in Latvia.
- There is no equally high-quality primary education provided in Latvia because the amount of teaching hours, assessment approach and support in schools vary significantly. It affects children’s progress and opportunities to compete in the next level of education.
- The primary education standard allows for wide deviations in the amount and implementation of subjects. As a result, the amount of teaching hours can differ by 750 hours or even more even in exam subjects by affecting the preparedness of students essentially.
- Schools do not have a single system for early detection of children’s strengths and weaknesses; state diagnostic or monitoring work was not provided for grades 3 and 6 for three years; formative assessment is not consistent, and support staff is limited (psychologist 14–18 minutes, speech therapist – approximately 11 minutes per week per student on average).
- The fact of accreditation does not confirm the quality of a school and does not protect children from prolonged study in schools with significant shortcomings. Regardless of the rating given “Excellent”, “Good” or “Needs Improvement”, schools are accredited for six years.
“The basic education standard allows schools to change the number of teaching hours significantly. It means that a child can learn a subject hundreds of hours less in one school than in another. Accreditation in itself does not confirm the quality of a school because it is carried out once every six years and is unable to identify significant shortcomings in the educational process in a timely manner. The children who do not have responsible legal representatives or whose opportunities to choose a school are limited by the social situation of their family are the least protected in such a system, as the school closest to their place of residence is often the only opportunity to study,” emphasised Ms Maija Āboliņa, Council Member of the State Audit Office Council.
As of 1 October 2025, there were 183,659 students studying in primary education curricula (grades 1–9) in 583 schools in Latvia. In local and regional governments, expenditure for the implementation of general secondary education (grades 1–12) has increased to 904 million euros from 2021 to 2024, which is 31% more than before. In the audit, the State Audit Office of Latvia has assessed the quality of primary education by analysing two elements of education quality, that is, the educational process and its management.
The primary education standard is the same for all schools; however, the amount of teaching varies among schools significantly.
The standard allows for wide variations in the scope and implementation of subjects, so the amount of teaching varies significantly from school to school. For example, in mathematics, the standard provides for 1,501 teaching hours in grades 1–9, but schools can reduce or increase this number by up to 25%. Practically, it means a difference of up to 751 teaching hours among schools by affecting the teaching of students significantly.
Although the number of hours in exam subjects of grade 9 is increased by up to 40%, it is reduced significantly in other subjects. For instance, the number of hours has been reduced by up to 50% in design and technology, up to 14% in social studies and history but by as much as 67% in one case, and up to 40% in computing. The standard also allows for the integration or inclusion of school subjects in other school subjects. The audit has even detected complete (100%) integration of subjects in other subjects.
The audit has revealed that the actual number of teaching hours held is mostly less than planned. For example, up to 46% fewer teaching hours were held in mathematics, up to 27% fewer teaching hours were held in Latvian, and up to 24% fewer teaching hours were held in English than planned in a three-year period. Thus, even the planned amount of teaching is not always fully implemented. Such insufficiently monitored and evaluated flexibility creates a situation where students’ knowledge and skills depend on the decisions made by a particular school. In addition, it is important that when choosing a school, students and their legal representatives are not informed about changes in the number of teaching hours and the integration of school subjects into other subjects. Such information is not publicly available by preventing the possibility of making a reasoned decision about choosing a school.
Assessment of student academic performance is still not used to identify a child’s needs in a timely manner and provide targeted support.
Schools do not have a single and effective system that would allow for timely detection of children’s strengths and weaknesses. One often notices a child’s problems too late, at a time when academic performance has already deteriorated significantly instead of the time when preventive support is needed. It indicates a systemic deficiency in which attention is paid to the final results rather than a student’s development process. This trend is also clearly evidenced by the analysis of student academic achievements. Some students with good or very good performance (70–90%) in mathematics in grade 3 were no longer able to achieve even 10% in the centralized exam in grade 9. A decline in academic performance could have been detected in these students already in grade 6. It indicates that there were clear signals of academic difficulties but nothing was done to solve the problems in a timely manner and provide targeted support for student growth.
For three school years, the Ministry of Education and Science has not ensured diagnostic or monitoring works for grades 3 and 6. It prevented obtaining comparable and impartial information about students’ academic performance and development dynamics. The need for diagnostic work is confirmed by the fact that the number of local and regional governments that elaborated their own diagnostic works increased over the three school years. Although this initiative is to be assessed positively, it was not efficient because almost half of the local and regional governments consumed their resources on the development of diagnostic works, although a single national solution was initially envisaged.
The so-called formative assessment, or the assessment of students’ academic performance without grades, is crucial in everyday schooling. Since a student learns in the learning process and does not already know everything, the goal of this assessment is to provide both teachers and students with information what they have already mastered and what they still need to master in a timely manner. However, formative assessment in schools is not effective and consistent in all school subjects and is not always used before tests that provide assessment with a grade. There are cases when it is carried out only the day before the test, which limits the opportunities to improve knowledge in a timely manner.
The availability of support staff in schools is particularly problematic. The “Programme at School” funding model for teachers and support staff is not based on the actual support needs of students. Therefore, there is no certainty that the state budget target grant is sufficient to provide the necessary support staff. According to auditors’ calculations, the time available for support per student is critically low because psychologist support is only 14–18 minutes per week and speech therapist support is approximately 11 minutes per week on average. It is not enough to spot learning or emotional difficulties in a timely manner and provide targeted assistance.
The fact of accreditation does not confirm the quality of a school and does not protect children from prolonged study in schools with significant deficiencies in the educational process.
Accreditation of educational institutions in the current format does not ensure a timely, unbiased and uniform assessment of the quality of school operations. Regardless of the assigned rating, that is, “Excellent”, “Good” or “Needs Improvement”, schools are accredited for six years. It also applies to cases where significant shortcomings have been identified such as insufficient support staff or increased risks of physical and emotional violence. The difference between accreditation and non-accreditation is negligible in practice because only one point separated the school from non-accreditation in some cases. It means that students can study for a long time in a school with serious quality problems.
Moreover, the accreditation approach is not adapted to different forms of education. Schools that implement only distance learning curricula for primary education are subject to the same criteria as face-to-face schools, although the processes and risks in these forms of education differ significantly.
In the opinion of the State Audit Office of Latvia, such accreditation is unable to fulfil its most important function, to provide students and their legal representatives with confidence that primary education in the school closest to their place of residence will be of high quality and equivalent to that received by their peers in other educational institutions.
Educational development planning is fragmented and expensive but education quality monitoring tools are still not usable.
The development of education in Latvia is planned in a fragmented manner and without interconnection among the government, local and regional governments, and schools. Planning documents often lack clear and measurable performance indicators that would allow assessing progress and effectiveness while goals and priorities are not coordinated at different levels. The obligation to develop education ecosystem development strategies from 1 September 2024 created an additional burden on local and regional governments. It has extensive requirements but the Ministry of Education and Science did not provide methodological support and a functioning digital risk identification tool. As a result, most local and regional governments outsourced the development of strategies by spending almost half a million euros. Most of these orders were received by one economic operator.
Education quality monitoring tools, created with the support of the European Union Structural Funds, are still unusable. Although they are designed to manage education quality risks and monitor the effectiveness of school network, their operation is limited by poor-quality or incomplete data and algorithms that do not take into account significant differences among educational institutions such as distance learning or special curricula. The auditors consider that such tools could provide significant support to both the State Service of Education Quality, local and regional governments, and schools.
Recommendations of the State Audit Office of Latvia #PēcRevīzijas
The State Audit Office of Latvia provided 10 recommendations to the Ministry of Education and Science. Their implementation shall ensure significant changes in primary education by 2031, that is, changes in school subjects and teaching hours shall be justified and monitored, the workload and remuneration of support staff shall be based on the actual support needs of students, state tests shall be implemented regularly in grades 3 and 6. Targeted support for the growth of every student shall be ensured, school accreditation shall be improved, bureaucracy in educational development planning shall be reduced, and functional digital tools shall be introduced in practice.
Additional reading: audit report summary, infographics.
In their turn, the examples of best practice identified during the audit, as well as the opinions of experts from the focus group organized by the State Audit Office of Latvia have been summarised in video stories by representatives of education boards and schools included in the audit sample, as well as experts. They are available on the YouTube.com channel of the State Audit Office.
About the State Audit Office of Latvia
The State Audit Office of the Republic of Latvia is an independent, collegial supreme audit institution. The purpose of its activity is to find out whether the actions with the financial means and property of a public entity are legal, correct, useful and in line with public interests, as well as to provide recommendations for the elimination of discovered irregularities. The State Audit Office conducts audits in accordance with International Standards of Supreme Audit Institutions of the International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions INTOSAI (ISSAI), whose recognition in Latvia is determined by the Auditor General. Upon discovering deficiencies, the State Audit Office of Latvia provides recommendations for their elimination, but it informs law enforcement authorities about potential infringements of the law.