Education system is administered at three levels - national, municipal and institutional.
The Parliament (Saeima), the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Education and Science are the main decision-making bodies at a national level.
In compliance to stipulations in the
- Education Law,
- General Education Law,
- Vocational Education Law,
- Law on Higher Education Institutions,
- Law on Scientific Activity,
- Sports Law,
- Official Language Law and
- the Regulations of the Ministry of Education and Science (in Latvian language)
the Ministry of Education and Science is the leading state administration institution in the field of education and science, as well as in the fields of sports and official language policy, and it is responsible for the development of draft legislative acts regulating the relevant fields and draft policy planning documents, supervision of the implementation of the policy in the state administration institutions, agencies subordinated to the Ministry and capital companies, where the Ministry is a shareholder.
Municipalities are obligated to provide children residing in its territory with the possibility to acquire pre-school education and pamatizglītība (integrated primary and lower secondary education) at the education institution, which is closest to the place of the residence. Municipalities are also obligated to provide youth with the opportunity to acquire upper-secondary education, as well to provide possibilities to realize informal education, support extracurricular work and camps for children.
The school is independent in developing and implementing education programs, staff hiring and school management. In particular, the school head (who is employed by the founder) hires the teaching and non-teaching staff, manages the financial resources, ensures the implementation of the regulatory enactments concerning education. The school head may hire deputy directors, who ensure qualitative organization of educating process.
The higher education institution is autonomous in regard to organizational procedure, implementation of the study process, internal rules and regulations, hiring and discharge of academic and technical personnel and distribution of allocated funding.