Integration monitor is a daily Latvian press digest on ethnic minority and society integration issues. The Monitor reviews the biggest Latvian dailies: Diena, Latvijas Avize, Neatkariga (in Latvian language), Vesti Segodnya (in Russian language). In specific cases other information sources are used. Latvian Centre for Human Rights is not responsible for information published by the media.

• Public opinion survey “Society Integration in Riga” presented
• Minister of Education Ina Druviete: learning subjects in Latvian language helps ethnic minorities to deepen Latvian language proficiency for the level of real bilingualism
• Advisory Committee on Ethnic Minority Education discussed education in kindergartens and results of the final examination of graduators of ethnic minority schools

Latvijas Avize reports about a public opinion survey “Society Integration in Riga” conducted by a company SKDS for the Riga City Council. The survey shows that the majority of Riga residents feel attached to Riga and Latvia and only 34% also to Europe. The newspaper notes that only 65% of Riga residents approved that they are ready to defend Latvia if its independence is endangered. 98% of the respondents believe that state symbolic should be honoured and 94% believe that it is important to know Latvian language. 47% said that they mostly use Latvian language in communication with state institutions, 11% use mostly Russian language, 15% use more often Russian than Latvian.

Commenting the planned language reform in minority schools scheduled for 2018, the Minister of Education Ina Druviete said that learning history, geography, and history of culture in native language in addition to lessons of native language and literature is adequate amount of education content for preservation of ethnic identity. The Minister believes that such proportion would help children to become absolutely bilingual preserving their own culture and to become practically proficient in Latvian language. She also believes that using Latvian language in learning other subjects helps to deepen Latvian language proficiency for the level of real bilingualism. Vesti Segodnya

Vesti Segodnya reports about the meeting of the Ministry of Education’s Advisory Committee on Ethnic Minority Education discussing education in kindergartens and results of the final examination of graduators of ethnic minority schools. According to a member of the Committee Elizabete Krivcova (representative of the Congress of Non-citizens), representatives of the Ministry agreed that education quality in Russian language kindergartens should be improved and promised to conduct a discussion about this issue in the near future. Mrs Krivcova also said that the presented data about the results of final examination show that results of state language examination has worsened as compared to previous yeas and also results of examination in biology worsened. While, results of students of ethnic minority schools in physics is higher as compared to students of Latvian language schools. Mrs Krivcova explained such results by the fact that graduators of Russian language schools pass Latvian language examination equally with students of Latvian language schools for whom it is a native language and also biology is learned in Latvia. While, physics included in the list of subjects taught in native language.