School principals should be able to temporarily substitute for teachers, but regularly teaching classes is incompatible with their duties, said Rūdolfs Kalvāns (National Alliance), former director of Sigulda State Gymnasium, who will take over as Head of the Education Department at the Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) in August.
Commenting on the discussions about amendments that may prohibit principals from regularly teaching, he acknowledged that opinions in the sector vary and that the public discourse does not reflect the views of all school leaders.
“It’s not true that everyone is against the amendments. Just because two or three people say they don’t like them doesn’t mean that all over 400 principals think the same,” he said.
According to Kalvāns, the workload of school leaders is too demanding to coordinate with a teaching schedule, and the idea that a principal “falls out of touch if they’re not at the blackboard” is exaggerated.
“To say that [school principals] will become officials or boring bureaucrats is a bit of an emotional exaggeration,”
Kalvāns believes.
He agrees that teaching should be delegated to deputy principals, while the principal should focus more on management and cooperation. At the same time, he noted that principals can still be involved in the learning process in other ways—for example, by supervising research projects, assisting Olympiad participants, or temporarily substituting for absent teachers.
Kalvāns, who will assume the role of Head of the MoES Education Department in August, promises to listen to all viewpoints and seek compromise during the planned three-year transition period.
As previously reported, on the 25th of June this year, the government approved MoES-proposed amendments to Cabinet regulations on teacher remuneration.
These regulations change
how additional pedagogical work by school principals, deputies, and other teaching staff is organized and compensated.
Currently, the rules allow for up to seven hours of additional teaching work per week with separate pay.
However, MoES previously explained that the State Audit Office found this practice inconsistent with the Labor Law and posing a risk of teacher overwork.
Currently, data from the State Education Information System shows that only 3.8% of educators work hours exceeding the standard workload, including school leaders and their deputies.
The adopted changes stipulate that from September 2027, these additional duties must be performed within the normal working hours, not exceeding 40 hours per week, and ensuring overtime pay according to the law. School management and their founders will need to adapt to the new requirements and assess the necessity of principals, deputies, methodologists, sports organizers, and school librarians in the functioning of the educational institution, the MoES stated.
The TV3 News program previously reported that such a decision has caused confusion among school leaders—
they believe this restriction could harm both their professional skills and students,
as school leaders often teach classes to compensate for teacher shortages.
Meanwhile, Minister of Education and Science Dace Melbārde (New Unity) has promised to continue dialogue with the sector regarding school leadership duties and remuneration conditions.
Melbārde agrees that principals and their deputies should be allowed to teach, thereby maintaining a strong connection with the educational process and playing a special role in shaping the school as a learning organization.
According to the minister, MoES officials have acted lawfully in correcting flaws in the Cabinet regulations on teacher remuneration. However, there has been a lack of broader dialogue with school leaders about the adopted amendments, and the issue needs to be resolved in substance—by creating a legally sound framework that allows school leadership to combine administrative functions with teaching duties in their schools, while ensuring that this is done as much as possible within normal working hours.
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