Lessons of religions

According to the article 6.3 of the Law of Religious Organisations, religions lessons or, more correctly Christian lessons, are presented in state and municipality schools by Evangelic Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Old-believer, and Baptist teachers who are appropriately certified. The concept of the Christian religious instruction does not include and cannot include the Jewish faith nor Islam. Standard of the subject of religion is formed as an interconfessional subject. However, the history of culture (such a subject is the only one in Europe) also includes topics about all the religions of the world, giving students an opportunity to discover the contexts of different religions. Familiarisation with the religions is also achieved in the lessons of religion (elective subject).
According to the paragraph 14 of the agreements between the Latvian government, the Methodist Church as well as the Seventh Day Adventist Church of Latvia, has the right to teach religious lessons in line with the regulatory enactments of the Republic of Latvia according to a curriculum jointly approved by the Ministry of Education and Science and the Evangelic Lutheran Church of Latvia. Because of the lack of appropriate legislation, in real life Methodist and Adventist cannot be taught Christian lessons.

For further information see the article "Religion in public education: Latvian experience" of Ringolds Balodis in Gerhard Robbers (Hrsg.), Religion in Public Education – La religion dans l’éducation publique, European Consortium for Church and State Research, Trier, 2011, 273-294.