An article in the magazine Wieści z Polski (News from Poland) with information on Polish schools in Latvia. The structure of schools in the country is mentioned, and three gymnasiums - in Riga, Dyneburg and Rzezhica - are mentioned, as well as 30 general schools. The problem with the Latvian Polish community and the issue of school closures are mentioned in passing (Source: "Wieści z Polski", Warsaw 1930, R: 3, no. 1, pp. 20-21, after: Jagiellonian Digital Library).

A modernised reading of the text

POLISH EDUCATION IN LATVIA.

Latvia is one of those countries neighbouring Poland that has quite a significant proportion of Polish population, and not immigrants, but those living there, namely in the former Polish Inflants (Latgalja), from their grandparents. It is therefore not a matter of indifference how relations with the Polish population are dealt with in this country, which is on good terms with Poland and even owes Poland a debt of gratitude. As far as school relations are concerned, they are not great. Here, in brief, is the news recently sent from Riga by a correspondent of the "Kurjer Warszawski".

During Russian times there was not a single Polish school, at least a legal one, on the territory of the present-day Latvian state. Only in Riga, before the war itself, did a locally well-known social activist, Mrs Jastrzębska, manage to obtain a licence to open a girls' boarding school, but she soon had to close down her establishment due to war accidents.

After the war, the Latvian constitution declared complete autonomy of education for all national minorities in the country. However, this autonomy, so far, remains on paper. Only crumbs of it have been put into practice in the form of minority school divisions created under the Latvian Ministry of Education: Polish, Russian, German, Jewish and Belorussian. In fact, these departments are severely restricted in their activities by the ministry's supervisory authorities, and the Polish school department, of which Ms Talaat-Kiełpsz has been head for several years, manifests its activities even more thinly than the others, even the youngest of them, the Belarusian department, which was organised only five years ago.

School in Latvia is uniform: general school with a six-year course and secondary school with a four-year course, and graduates of general schools are automatically admitted to the first grade (corresponding to the fifth grade in Poland) of secondary school. As a large proportion of general school leavers are enrolled in secondary schools, the result is that there are already complaints about the hyperproduction of unskilled intelligentsia, while secondary school leavers account for 50 per cent of the workers in the port of Riga, occupied with the heavy physical labour of loading ships.

Poles currently have 3 secondary schools (gymnasiums) in Riga, Dyneburg and Rzezhitsa in Latvia, as well as more than 30 comprehensive schools, of which 6 are in Riga, 4 in Dyneburg, 1 in Mitava and 2 in Libava, the rest in various towns in Latgalja and the Ilyukastia district. However, not all of these schools are complete. Most of them have two, or even only one, lowest grade.

In Polish schools, instruction is in Polish, except for Latvian language, Latvian history and geography, which are taught in Latvian. School-leavers are required to have a thorough knowledge of Latvian, both spoken and written.

All schools in Latvia, both mainstream and secondary, are co-educational. The Latvian School Act has brought very intricate methods to the selection of teaching staff. Candidates are selected by municipal school councils, consisting of representatives of local government bodies, teachers and parent committees. The candidates are then approved by the county school board and then nominated by the head of the school division, who has the right of veto, but never actually exercises it, as his objection can be appealed to the minister of education, who can replace the teacher after consultation with the main school board, without looking at the head of the school division concerned.

As a result of the fact that teachers' appointments are sometimes influenced by influences that do not take into account the pedagogical value of the candidates, the composition of the teaching staff does not always correspond to the requirements set by society. And if good intentions are not enough, professional qualifications leave a lot to be desired.
And there is no remedy for this. We do not have a teachers' seminar. And the requirement of Latvian citizenship is an obstacle to the import of qualified teachers from Poland.

It should also be added that, despite its constitutional guarantees, there is a long and arduous struggle for the Polish school in Latvia. The school inspectors, acting on behalf of the Ministry of Education, have always tried to make these guarantees illusory by harassing Polish education in various ways.

In recent times, the Ministry of Education has begun to open schools in towns with a significant Polish population, Latvian-Polish schools, in which the Polish language is taught by people who often know almost no Polish. However, as these schools have better premises and are better equipped than the Polish ones in all respects, their attendance rates are rising, and the total number of children attending Polish schools, which previously reached 5,000, has begun to decline. Several schools have even closed down completely.

This news raises serious concern for the fate of the young Polish generation in Latvia, where, as we said at the outset, Poles are as good autochthons as anyone else. Poland does not have a Latvian minority in its country, and is far from tolerant towards other minorities, such as the Germans and Lithuanians. Unfortunately, none of its neighbours repays it with the same measure.