The Evaluation of the Changable Educational Environment of Latvian Rural Schools

Nowadays rural schools function under the conditions of constantly changeable environment, where the process of self-development is observed. Due to the influence of economical, demographical and social crises the problem of the sustainability of a rural school as the educational environment has become urgent in Latvia. The sustainability of rural community and its cultural environment also considerably depends on the sustainability of a rural school. The educational environment of rural schools has been studied by the authors of this article for many years, providing the multi-dimensional point of view: 1) rural school as a viable, self-developing, self-organizing and self-assessing system of educational environment; 2) rural school as an open humanistically target oriented lifelong environment for sustainable development of community; 3) rural school as a learning organization to change and develop. The article provides the description of the expertise of educational environment of rural schools, as a result of which there were analyzed and evaluated the changes that had taken place in this environment within the period of time of four years (2008 - 2012). The research results enable to draw a conclusion that very important changes have taken place in the educational environment of research base schools and in order to ensure the sustainable development, the rural schools transform into the educational multi-functional and multi-structural centres of community.