Latvia may drop advanced level exams in high school
Education Minister Ilze Indriksone has announced discussions about possibly eliminating advanced level exams in high schools, as few students take them and universities prioritize overall exam results.
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Latvia's Minister of Education and Science, Ilze Indriksone (National Alliance), stated in an interview on TV3's program "900 seconds" on Tuesday morning that the ministry has begun discussions on whether to abandon advanced level exams in high school. These exams are taken after completing advanced courses, but only a small number of students choose to take them.
The minister explained that most universities, when admitting students, primarily consider overall centralized exam results rather than scores from specific advanced courses. Therefore, it is being evaluated whether the requirement to take these exams is still justified. However, Indriksone emphasized that no final decision has been made yet.
At the same time, the minister praised the already implemented reduction in the number of high school exams. In her view, moving away from requiring students to take a large number of exams was the right step.
Today at 10:00 AM, a press conference will be held at the ministry's information center "Zinātava" to present the initial results of the centralized exams. Participants include Minister Indriksone, Normunds Rečs, Director of the State Examination Department of the State Education Development Agency (VIAA), and Kaspars Špūle, Head of the General Education State Examination Unit at VIAA.
Certificates for basic education centralized exams have been issued since June 26, while general secondary education certificates have been available since July 3. This year, 47,647 basic education exam and monitoring works were assessed, along with 74,646 secondary education centralized exam works.
