Vocational Education and Training and the Labour Market in Latvia

Vocational education and training reform

Changes in legislation

Since the publication of the last report several important pieces of legislation concerning vocational education have been passed.  The most important is the Law on Vocational Education, passed in 1999.  It lays out the initial vocational training system.

The Law prescribes the following levels of vocational education:

Basic vocational education;
Secondary vocational education (this includes vocational training and upper secondary vocational education programmes);
Higher vocational education, which consists of:
    - first level higher vocational education;
    - second level higher vocational education.

The Latvian education system defines five skill levels
The first skill level can be acquired through basic vocational education programmes, the second – through vocational training, the third – through upper secondary vocational education, the fourth – through first level higher vocational education, the fifth – through second level higher vocational education programmes.  Second level higher vocational education is regulated by the Law on Higher Education Establishments.

In the year 2000, the national vocational education standard and upper secondary vocational education standard were adopted, and in 2001 the first level higher vocational education standard was adopted.  They determine the distribution of the compulsory training content, final examinations and requirements for completing training programmes.

Vocational education establishments

In Latvia there are state, local government and private vocational education establishments.  State vocational education establishments are attended by 95% of all vocational education students.  Vocational education in Latvia is still implemented by establishments under the authority of various government ministries.  The main provider of vocational education is the Ministry of Education and Science, with 58% of all students attending vocational education establishments under its authority.  State vocational education establishments belong also to the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Welfare, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of the Interior.

At the beginning of the 2000/2001 academic year, a total of 48.6 thousand students were attending vocational education establishments altogether.  Compared to the previous academic year, the number of students has increased by 2%.

In the 2000/2001 academic year, in all vocational education establishments a total of 18.4 thousand students were enrolled (18.6 thousand in a.y. 1997/98).  Of these 66% had finished basic education (72% in a.y. 1997/98), 21% had finished upper secondary school (17% in 97/98), 2% had not finished basic education (3% in 97/98), and 11% had finished other schools. (8% in 97/98).

Available training programmes

In keeping with changing labour market demand, there have been changes in the training programmes offered by vocational education establishments.  If during the Soviet era the vocational education and training system offered only secondary-level education programmes, then as of 1997 vocational education establishments provide remedial basic education programmes (these are meant for young people who return to education after a bread and who find it important to combine basic education with acquisition of vocational skills), and as of 1999 first level higher education programmes are also offered.

As can be seen in figure 14, more and more vocational education establishments are adapting to labour market demand, because the percent distribution of students enrolled in various programme groups is nearing the distribution of the employed among the various economic sectors.  With the increase in the proportion of those employed in the service sector, there has also been an increase in the number of students acquiring qualifications needed in this area.  If in 1997, 25% were employed in manufacturing, then 50% of students were training in manufacturing qualifications, while 53% were employed in the service sector, but only 40% of students were training in service qualifications.  The situation has changed in the 2000/2001 academic year, but there is still a comparatively high number of students who are training in manufacturing technologies (43%), even though manufacturing employed only 27% in the year 2000.  Since the proportion of persons employed in manufacturing in Latvia is approximately equal to the average level in EU countries (29% in 1999), then vocational education establishments should continue to decrease the provision of programmes that train workers for manufacturing and increase programmes, that train workers for the service sector.  The fact that there exists a certain discrepancy between the distribution of the employed and of students among economic sectors could be one of the factors why many leavers of vocational education establishments do not work in the profession for which they have trained.

Figure 14.

Changes in the structure of economic sectors, of course influence the career choice made by young people.  Statistics on the last three academic years show that the number of students studying certain groups of vocational training programmes has significantly changed.

The rapid development and popularity of the information technology sector has affected the number of students in computer science training programmes, which has increased 5.4 times.  There has also been an increase in the number of students studying business and administration, construction, art and music programmes.

The level of manufacturing technology in agriculture and the low wages of employees in this sector have also affected the choice of young people in studying for qualifications in this area.  In the last three years the number of students attending vocational training programmes in agriculture has decreased 2.7 times.  There has also been a decrease in the number of students in engineering and industrial training programmes.

Figure 15.

In order to determine the most popular training programmes, a competitive coefficient was set – this is the number of applications against the number of enrolled students in the respective group of training programmes.
The average competitive coefficient in vocational training programmes is not high – 1.2.  This proves that for the most part young people have the opportunity to study their chosen profession.

As can be seen in figure 16, young people have shown the most interest in computer science, design, national guard and pharmacy training programmes.  It must be noted that the competitive coefficient is not a very reliable indicator, it only reflects common trends and depends on several factors, such as the number of places available in the respective training programme, the popularity of the education establishment, etc..

Figure 16.

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