Latvian State President’s Chancellery reports that on Tuesday, the 7th of November, President Edgars Rinkēvičs signed and submitted to the Saeima two legislative initiatives, inviting amendments to the Education Law and Law on Public Holidays, Commemoration Days, and Celebration Days.
“Safety should be the priority of education institutions. Without safety we cannot imagine a quality education process. Both children and teachers have the right to feel safe in education institutions. I believe the legislator needs to act to include clear regulations in the Education Law for cases when there are justified concerns about threats of violence or other security risks coming from dangerous substances and items students may or may not bring with them,” says the president.
In a letter to the Saeima Praesidium, it is stressed: “To prevent such cases, I propose including in the law unambiguous regulations that will provide heads of education institutions
the right to search through the items students bring with them to school.
The legislator, balancing the right of educational institutions to act and the right of students to trust in reasonable protection of their rights and interests, must find a reasonable balance that prevents arbitrariness for either side”.
The Education Law already includes regulations that dictate parents’ duty to inform the head of the education institution their child goes to about their health or other conditions that can potentially influence the learning process and people involved in it. However, in practice there are cases when parents doe not provide the required information. It is in such situations that the education process suffers.
“Unfortunately, I have to conclude that the duty for parents to provide important information about their children to the education institution is often ignored. Therefore, I propose recognising the actions of parents, in not providing the information specified in the regulatory enactments to the educational institution, as an administrative violation in the field of education,” the president’s letter mentions.
As for amendments to the Law on Public Holidays, Commemoration Days, and Celebration Days, the president invites celebrating the International Teachers’ Day on the 5th of October.
“Until now Teachers’ Day in Latvia was celebrated on the first Sunday of October, which creates unequal practices in celebrating the day and often causes misunderstandings for both students and their parents as to when teachers are to be honoured. To equalise the approach to the celebration of Teachers’ Day in Latvia and raise this profession’s prestige and importance, I invite setting this day of celebration to the 5th of October,” the letter mentions.
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