Parents urge government to halt planned cuts to school materials

Funding for pupils’ learning materials is planned to fall next year from 9.13 million euros to 5.68 million euros, LSM reported. Parents, school principals and other organisations are calling for the funding to be kept at least at this year’s level.

Inga Akmentiņa-Smildziņa, head of the parent organisation Mammām un tētiem, said in interviews with Latvian Radio and LTV that the organisation and 95 school principals were urging the authorities not to make the cut. She said current funding was already too low and should instead be increased, adding that the call to maintain it was a modest one.

Akmentiņa-Smildziņa said the money could be found by reallocating funds from existing projects or funds in the sector. She also cited estimates from two publishers that private individuals had spent 245,000 euros on learning materials in the first 10 months of this year. “That is a huge amount. If we look at the law, this sum should be zero,” she said.

She said municipalities differed substantially in how much they spent on learning materials per child. As a result, children’s access to materials can depend on where they live and their family’s circumstances, she said, adding that some parents may be unable to contribute.

Akmentiņa-Smildziņa urged the incoming government to speak openly about the fact that parents already buy learning materials, while some families cannot afford to do so. She said the issue remained a “grey area”: authorities say parents should not buy the materials because the state and municipalities will provide them, but in practice they are not always supplied.

She added that if parents are legally allowed to help provide learning materials, there must also be a state-funded set for children in at-risk or low-income families.