Ina Druviete

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Ina Druviete (born May 29, 1958 in Riga, Latvia) 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 reasearcher in this field and was awarded several grants (Fulbright Foreign Scholarship among them). She has published approximately 250 publications, mainly on linguistics, sociolinguistics and language policy.

Druviete became actively involved in politics in 2001, when she joined her second political party - the New Era Party (Jaunais laiks). 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 nominated and appointed Minister of Education and Science.^[1] 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" dipthong doesn't exist in Latvian. As Education Minister Ina Druviete even threatened to take the European Union to court over the issue.^[2]

Druviete was member of Board of New Era Party (Jaunais laiks) as key leading figure of party internal opposition to Einars Repse. She left party in 2008. Now Druviete is involved in another political party making.^[3]