Education and Training Monitor 2024

1. Learning for sustainability

In Latvia, learning for sustainability (LfS) is incorporated in the curriculum through a competence-based approach spanning different subjects. The 2021-2027 Education Development Guidelines ¹ “Future Skills for Future Society” link Latvia's education policy targets to UN Sustainable Development Goal 4, which is to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development. The compulsory curriculum includes subject areas such as an introduction to technologies and science, languages, art, and people and society. These subjects have scope to embed sustainability concepts across a range of disciplines, but the extent to which this happens depends on individual teachers. Overall, the integration of sustainability into the curriculum reflects Latvia’s commitment to provide students with an education that prepares them for the challenges of sustainable development. Though there are frameworks and guidelines in place, actual practice may vary.

The implementation of LfS in Latvian schools relies on the initiatives of individual actors and remains limited in reach. Schools are encouraged to integrate sustainability education into their curricula to foster awareness and action on sustainable development, but schools and teachers would need more methodological support and incentives to do so. Currently, less than a third of Latvian schools offer all eighth graders the chance to participate in sustainability-related activities (See Figure 1). Rather, Latvia encourages schools to become Learning Organisations (SLO) ², providing scholarships for international exchanges and participating in European initiatives and projects ³. The current approach largely relies on the initiative of individuals (e.g., teachers, school principals, local NGOs, municipalities and private companies – see Box 1). However, by their nature these initiatives tend to be limited in scale, duration and reach, with limited scope for ensuring continuity, scaling-up and multiplication of good practices, particularly in the absence of continued government funding.

Figure 1: Proportion of schools by country in which all (or nearly all) 8th grade students have had the opportunity to take part in activities related to environment sustainability, ICCS 2022

Most teachers agree on the need to include sustainability issues in their teaching, but few feel sufficiently trained to do so. Over half (61%) of Latvian teachers have participated in (pre-service and/or in-service) training courses on the environment and sustainability, considerably above the EU (17) average of 53.6% (Schulz et al., 2023). However, a survey carried out in 2020 involving 217 teachers from 12 schools in Riga found that just 9.5% of respondents considered their methodological level of preparation as sufficient, and almost 80% would like to receive training in sustainability issues (Vasilevska & Geske 2020). The lack of appropriate teaching materials was mentioned as another obstacle, with only 34.5% of respondents saying they had access to appropriate materials on sustainable development to be able to integrate the subject into the curriculum.

Latvia is stepping up action to develop skills needed for the green transition through vocational education and training. Latvia’s national education guidelines for 2021-2027 set the objective to promote green skills and digitalisation throughout vocational education and training (VET). The implementation of ‘Green School’ principles in VET will focus on promoting sustainability and resource efficiency. It will include revising educational programmes to include ‘green’ skills and environmental awareness, while ensuring teachers have the necessary training. Latvia has developed a ‘green skills’ module for integration into VET programmes.

EU funds will support green upskilling. Some EUR 15 million from the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) will be used to develop more structural upskilling and reskilling programmes and flexible learning pathways, to increase green skills and to boost the green economy in Latvia.

Latvia lacks a specific mechanism for discussing and monitoring green policy initiatives. Although well-established cooperation mechanisms enable a range of stakeholders at all levels to discuss VET programmes (the tripartite national level council PINTSA, sector-specific expert councils and VET provider conventions), greening is not yet being addressed sufficiently.

2. Early childhood education and care

Participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) is almost universal for children aged between 3 and the start of compulsory primary education, and enrolment of younger children is rising. In 2022, 94.5% of 3-6-year-olds were enrolled in ECEC, above the EU average of 93.1%, and not far below the EU-level target of 96% by 2030 ⁴. The share of children under 3 enrolled in formal ECEC has been rising steadily over the past decade. It reached 34.9% ⁵ in 2023 but is still below both the EU average of 37.5% and the Barcelona target of 41% by 2030.

Ensuring a sufficient supply of quality ECEC remains a priority. Latvia’s Education Law stipulates that all children are legally entitled to a place in ECEC from the age of 18 months. However, there is a shortage of public places for ECEC in some areas, especially in municipalities close to Riga. The government’s Guidelines on the development of education for 2021-27 include the goal to improve access to ECEC for 1-4-year-olds. According to Latvia’s central statistical bureau, at the beginning of the 2022/2023 school year, there were 98 000 children in pre-school education programmes, 86% in Latvian and 13.1% in Russian-speaking programmes ⁶. The transition to Latvian as the sole language of instruction is ongoing, with each institution adapting to the challenges independently and with potential support from the local municipality. The move to competence-based teaching and learning has been underway in pre-schools since 2019.

Pre-school teacher salaries have been brought in line with the salaries of other teachers. In 2023, the Latvian Constitutional Court ruled that the Cabinet of Ministers’ regulations setting a lower salary for pre-school teachers were incompatible with the constitutional principle of legal equality ⁷. As a result, the rules were declared void as of 1 January 2024. From 1 January 2024, the government increased the minimum salary for pre-school teachers by 23%, in line with the starting monthly salary for other general education teachers.

3. School education

The proportion of early leavers from education and training (ELET) is well below the EU average and the gender gap has narrowed markedly over the years. In 2023, the ELET rate among 18-24-year-olds was 7.7%, below both the EU average of 9.5% and the EU-level target of less than 9% by 2030 ⁸. The rate remains higher in rural areas, at 9.5%. Men are more likely than women to leave school early (10%, compared with 5.5%) but the gap has steadily narrowed over the past decade from 7.8 pps in 2013 to 4.5 pps in 2023 and is edging closer to the EU average (3.6 pps).

Latvia’s education system performs comparatively well in terms of basic skills proficiency, with a lower-than-average rate of underachievement. According to the results of the 2022 Programme for international students’ assessment (PISA), the overall performance of Latvian 15-year-olds has worsened in mathematics, remained stable in reading ⁹ and slightly improved in science (European Commission, 2024). Compared to the 2018 results, the share of low-performing students in science fell by 2 pps to 16.5%, well below the EU average of 24.2% and just 1.5 pps above the EU-level target of 15% by 2030. By contrast, the proportion of students underachieving in mathematics increased by 4.8 pps to 22.2%, less than at EU level (6.6 pps) and still 7.3 pps below the EU average of 29.5%. There is no observable gender gap, except in reading, where boys are over-represented among low-achieving students with a gap of 10.6 pps in favour of girls.

The share of top performing students in all three domains has been below the EU average for a decade. The share of top performers in reading ¹⁰, has remained stable since 2012, but in mathematics it fell by 2 pps between 2018 and 2022 to 6.4%, below the EU average (7.9%). By contrast, in science, the rate increased by 1.5 pps over the same period to reach 5.2% (EU: 6.9%). In terms of the gender gap, Latvian boys are more likely to be top performers in mathematics (3.1 pps) and science (1.6 pps) and less likely in reading (-2.3pps), in line with EU trends.

Latvia’s education system is broadly equitable, with students’ socio-economic status exerting a limited influence on learning achievement. On average, socio-economic status accounted for 13.2% of the variation in mathematics performance, against the EU average of 17.8%. According to PISA 2022, Latvia has one the smallest socio-economic gaps in underachievement in mathematics (28.0 pps against an EU average of 37.1 pps). Although the rate of underachievement among students from the bottom quarter of the distribution has risen by 9.6 pps since 2018 to 36.9%, it remained well below the EU average (36.9% vs 48.0% at EU level) in 2022. There has been no change at the top quarter of the socio-economic distribution.

The level of basic skills proficiency varies significantly by geographical area and by type of school. The PISA 2022 results confirm that access to quality education remains dependent on place of residence: larger urban schools, particularly in the capital, Riga, continued to perform much better than smaller rural schools, with a difference of 43 score points in mathematics. The differences are even greater between different types of school, with students from state ‘gymnasiums’ scoring significantly higher than students from high schools and basic schools, with differences of 52 and 72 score points respectively (Geske et al., 2023).

The extent of bullying is a cause for concern. 29.3% of students reported that they were bullied at least a few times a month, the highest share in the EU. Exposure to bullying is correlated with a 13-point drop in mathematics scores. By contrast, 76.7% of Latvian 15-year-olds feel like they belong at school, compared to the EU average of 72.4%. A sense of belonging is associated with a moderate increase in students’ mathematics score (+7 points).

Renewing the teaching workforce is a challenge. Despite government efforts, teaching remains a relatively unattractive option for young graduates (European Commission, 2023). Re-training programmes for future teachers ¹¹ have proved successful and continue to attract new participants, both with and without teaching experience. However, with 37.5% of teachers older than 55 (EU average 24.8%) ¹² they are unlikely to be enough to replenish the teaching workforce.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted changes to the school curriculum. The 2024/2025 school year will see ‘national defence studies’ brought in as a compulsory subject, and history reinstated as a separate subject in secondary schools. In addition, from 2026/2027, schools will have to start phasing out Russian as a second foreign language and replace it with one of the official EU languages. Schools vary in their level of preparedness to teach a second foreign language other than Russian. Some schools have already started a gradual switch from Russian to French or German. In others, Russian is the only option on offer due to a lack of teachers of other languages. The Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) has announced plans to provide some training for language teachers this year.

Latvia is planning to make school attendance compulsory for all school-age children displaced from Ukraine ¹³ as of the school year 2024/2025. Almost 4 000 Ukrainian children already attend Latvian schools, but there are an estimated further 2 000, of compulsory school age, who are not registered in any Latvian educational institution. The planned change aims to foster the well-being of all Ukrainian children, to ensure that they are engaged in the learning process and master the curriculum, and to help them integrate into Latvian society more broadly. The MoES provides different forms of support: individual curricula for students, language learning opportunities for children and parents, and a range of non-formal education activities to help Ukrainian children and young people maintain their native language, traditions and cultural values (see also Box 1). It proposes to allocate EUR 4 million to schools for additional Latvian language classes, teaching assistants and learning materials.

4. Vocational education and training

Latvia continues to improve the flexibility of its vocational education and training (VET) system. Following the regulatory amendments passed in 2023, VET students are now able to receive state-recognised documentation for the partial completion of professional qualifications, a diploma in vocational secondary education and a certificate of professional qualification once graduating. Professional qualification certificates have also been made available in digital format, with plans underway to provide all-digital VET diplomas/ certificates. The objective is to make the VET system more flexible and give learners the opportunity to improve their skills throughout life.

VET curricula have been adapted to meet labour market needs and improve quality. As of 2023, all VET institutions have been tasked to lead in at least one sector, to coordinate among other VET institutions the design and the revision of VET curricula and to ensure sufficient upskilling of teachers and trainers. Between 2022 and 2023, the state approved 102 new sample programmes for 187 professional qualifications and updated the programmes to meet sectoral needs. Additionally, as part of the graduate tracking policy initiative launched by the Ministry of Education and Science in 2020, a VET graduate tracking tool was published in 2024 to help develop and adapt the supply of VET courses to the evidenced need.

Actions to improve the attractiveness of VET show promising initial results. In Latvia, 43.9% of pupils in medium-level education ^{14 attend programmes with a vocational focus, compared to 52.50% in the EU (2022 data) 15}. The employment rate of recent VET graduates is also below the EU average (74.8% in 2023, compared to 81% EU-wide) ¹⁶. However, in recent years the number of students enrolled in vocational upper secondary education has increased from less than 24 000 between 2016 and 2020 to 24 885 in 2022, while the number of students enrolled in upper secondary education has remained stable at around 60 000 ¹⁷. Likewise, the number of upper secondary education vocational graduates increased from 3 996 in 2021 to 4 149 in 2022 ¹⁸. Despite a fall in the overall number of tertiary students ¹⁹, the number of short-cycle tertiary vocational students has increased from 13 868 in 2020 to 14 344 in 2022, a positive trend ²⁰.

5. Higher education

The proportion of young adults with a tertiary educational qualification is high, but a wide gender gap persists. In 2023, 45.1% of Latvian 25-34-year-olds had a tertiary educational qualification, above the EU average of 43.1% and in line with the EU-level target of 45% by 2030 ²¹. However, while the tertiary educational attainment (TEA) rate of young women (57.3%) is significantly above the EU average of 48.8%, the TEA rate for men is well below the EU average (33.6% vs 37.6%). The resulting gender gap is one of the widest in the EU.

The share of STEM graduates is low, particularly among women. Among 2022 graduates, 19.7% were STEM graduates, one of the lowest shares in the EU (average 26.6%). Of these, only about a third (33.1%) were women (or 6.5% of all graduates, compared to an EU average of 9.4%). At 14.7 per thousand ²², the proportion of STEM graduates among the population aged 20-29 has not changed significantly over the past decade and remains much lower than the EU average of 23%.

A tertiary educational qualification constitutes a clear advantage on the labour market. In 2023, the employment rate of recent graduates ²³ in the 20-34 age group was one of the highest in the EU, at 93.6% against the EU average of 87.7% ²⁴. This is in stark contrast to the employment rate of VET graduates in the same age group, which was 74.8% in 2023, well below the EU average of 81% ²⁵ and almost 20 pps lower than that of their tertiary-educated peers (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Employment rate of recent graduates in 2023 (%)

Latvia is taking steps to boost the number of PhD graduates. In 2024, the law on higher education was amended to bring in a new doctoral model that ensures adequate remuneration for doctoral students during their studies and provides for a unified PhD process. The amendments entered into force on 1 May 2024, but the new doctoral model will only be fully implemented from 1 January 2027. The lack of researchers and PhD graduates is a barrier to strengthening Latvia’s R&I system and it is a threat to its competitiveness (ETM, 2023). In 2022, there were 0.3 PhD graduates per 1 000 inhabitants aged 25-34 (EU average: 1.3), down from 0.5 in 2015 ²⁶.

The MoES is introducing a new funding model for state universities which will increase their autonomy in allocating public funding internally. The current funding model, based on the number of state-funded study places, creates an incentive for universities to fill funded places, rather than focusing on preparing qualified graduates. This translates into lower admission requirements and higher non-completion rates.

Under the new system, funding will be allocated based on the number of graduates. Universities will decide how many students to admit to fully funded, fee-paying and co-paying study places. The transition to an institution-level funding model will enable higher education institutions to allocate the available funding in line with their goals, focusing on course quality. They will also be able to make decisions based on programme size, cost, and demand. However, the state will require universities to train a certain number of specialists in sectors of national importance, such as STEM fields. After an initial pilot phase, the system should be extended to all state universities in 2026.

6. Adult learning

Adult learning participation remains a challenge. The rate of adults aged 25-64 participating in learning (in the last 12 weeks) fell from 39% in 2016 (just above the EU average of 37.4%) to 34.1% in 2022 ²⁷. This is 5 points below the EU average of 39.5%, and 25.9 pps below the 2030 national target of 60.0% of adults participating in learning every year. The rate fell for both men and women, though the rate is much higher for women (41.3% against 26.5%) ²⁸.

Latvia has taken steps to improve the adult learning system, but challenges persist. To improve overall adult education quality, Latvia has focused on improving and recognising non-formal education. Since 2022, non-formal programmes must fulfil certain criteria in terms of learning outcomes, content and language. A certificate is now issued to participants upon completion. In 2023, a common framework was created for assessing digital skills also in non-formal programmes with the adoption of a new permitting regulation. Despite this, a State Audit Report in 2023 ²⁹ found that Latvia’s current State co-financed adult education system needs to (1) increase the participation rate of low-skilled adults; (2) focus on meeting labour market needs; and (3) improve its forecasting and governance models.

The low level of digital literacy in adults is particularly concerning. Latvia’s general literacy rate remains very high at 99.89% (world average of 91.79% ³⁰). Young people perform well in maths and science, as evidenced by the PISA 2022 results, and have high levels of digital literacy, with 81% of 16-19-year-olds having at least basic digital skills (EU average of 69%). Nevertheless, only 51% of the adult population (aged 16 to 74) have basic digital skills, far below the Digital Europe goal of at least 80% by 2030.

EU funds will continue to support action on upskilling in Latvia. Over 66 500 adults successfully completed European Social Fund (ESF) support programmes to improve their professional competence between 2016 and 2023. Latvia will continue to invest in adult education over the 2021-2027 period, with EUR 61.4 million from the ESF+. As part of Latvia’s plan funded by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility, Latvia will develop a sustainable adult learning framework and pilot the concept of individual learning accounts and three sectoral skills funds.