LATVIA

Societal Problems and Spiritual Concentration

By Anita Jakobsone
chair-woman of the board, Latvian Adult Education Association

The following problems are in great need to be addressed by adult education in Latvia:

• society democratisation, formation of civic society (decision making, conflict resolution, participation, networking),
• raising the skill level among employed,
• youth unemployment (20% of the unemployed are under the age of 25),
• social integration through providing "second chance" education to young people (in evening schools and folk high schools, in the army and universities),
• the growth of the number of the part-time employed, radical changes in the labour market, the growth of unemployment among people above the age of 45,
• education for the socially marginalised groups (the handicapped, prisoners, people with low level of education, dealing with illiteracy, functional illiteracy).
• environmental and health protection,
• ethical thinking: global and local environment ethics,
• bridging the gap between the material and moral values: what are the perspectives of the utilitarian society? What are the perspectives of a society that does not solve the ethical problem of self-consciousness and stimulates the process of avoiding existential questions?

  Juris Rubenis (prominent Latvian priest): "The past that we deny celebrates the victory in us".

We need a new political system, as well as a new system of values that would bring us to qualitative changes. Our country needs reforms, including moral reforms. They cannot be turned into reality by a regulation, sighed by an official, they can be implemented only when each person makes his or her own individual decision. That is the most difficult part of the process. What we can do now is to say "no" to life without certain moral imperatives.

The education does determine the existence of the society to a great extent

Education without ethical limitations brings the society to cloning, euthanasia and environmental problems. The ethical aspect of education does become more and more important. Latvia will soon come to the point where we will have to make decisions about:

• whether we teach our children to take care of an alive cat or whether we buy a tomagutchi and let them feel that a life is equal to pushing some buttons at a certain time;
• whether we put on special glasses and watch the PC monitor in order to enjoy the virtual reality of a meadow and flowers with no smell while the real meadows get polluted by everyday trash?

When the societal paradigm changes (and it will, since the utilitarian instinct of greediness has no limits) the paradigm of education has to change. The question that we face is as follows: shall we do it in the future when it might be too late or shall we do it now?

The education system should prepare the individuals for making their choice. The faster the interchange of information, the more choices we face. Consequently, the values and priorities of an individual do gain a special importance at this point. The ethical values and the readiness to implement them in life are the essence of any individual philosophy. Therefore, training to make morally motivated choices is the main task of the education system. We do face new problems concerning the cultural heritage too. Personal computers and TV drive us away from books. How to avoid losing national culture in the multiple-culture environment? Losing the cultural identity generates lack of individual self-awareness.

Development of adult education in Latvia

I would like to stress that the formation of adult education in Latvia has been difficult and slow. Little understanding of the need for financial support by the state for popular education is a part of the problem. We have reasons to hope that a line item for adult education will be introduced in the next year’s state budget. This would stimulate education through local governments, especially aimed at the groups of low income. However, so far the Latvian Ministry of Education and Science has showed little understanding and interest about life-long education, guaranteed by legislation, the development of the infrastructure, as well as cooperation between the state and the non-governmental organisations. Our ministers do forget about these aspects in the process of making international cooperation agreements. Therefore I would like to propose two suggestions for our further discussion:

1. adult education could become one of the priorities of the Nordic cooperation with the Baltic countries in the area of education,
2. we request the Nordic Council of Ministers to support adult education policy development process in Latvia (Lithuania, Estonia) in the next year and:

• carry out an independent evaluation of adult education development in the Baltic countries,
• organise a training visit for the key ministry officials (minister, state secretary) and the leaders of the strongest NGOs,
• this exchange of experience could be concluded by a two day conference "Adult education policy and structure in the Nordic and Baltic countries: tendencies and perspectives"

Main aims of the Latvian Adult Education Association (LAEA):

1. Development of the adult education policy in Latvia (legislation, financing, management).
2. Strengthening the democratic participation and decision making in local communities.

Main tasks LAEA:

• training of trainers of adult education,
• training of adult education managers,
• training of NGO leaders,
• improvement of the content of adult education (human rights, gender equality, civic education, etc.),
• minimising the social exclusion trough development of education programmes for different target groups: prison education, second chance education for youth, evening school reform, business education for women, basic education for illiterate adults, courses for the unemployed.

Contact address:

Latvian Adult Education Association
Anita Jakobsone
Merkela st. 11, LV-1050, Ríga, Latvia

tel./fax 371-7-222411
e-mail: laea@parks.lv

BALTICUM