Ina Druviete

Who is Ina Druviete?

Ina Druviete was the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Latvia in 2004-2006.

Ina Druviete graduated from the University of Latvia in 1981 with a degree in the Latvian language and literature. Her first political party was Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Gradually she became a respected researcher in this field and was awarded several grants. She has published approximately 250 publications, mainly on linguistics, sociolinguistics and language policy. However, she has no publications in peer reviewed international journals.

Druviete became actively involved in politics in 2001, when she joined her second political party - the New Era Party. In the general elections of 2002 she was elected to Saeima, the Parliament of Latvia. Later she was elected Chairperson of the Parliament's Human Rights and Public Affairs Committee.

In 2004 Druviete was terminated and appointed as a Minister of Education and Science. She served in this position until New Era Party leaving the coalition government in April 2006. Her foremost achievement in the eyes of supporters is the implementation of the Educational Reform, which stipulated a transition to education mostly in Latvian in minority secondary schools. After her statement Latvija would call the euro the "eiro" because the "eu" diphthong doesn't exist in Latvian. As Education Minister Ina Druviete even threatened to take the European Union to court over the issue.