2025

Introduction of the individual learning account approach 

In December 2024, Latvia launched the skills management platform developed by the State Education Development Agency (VIAA) and supported by the European Union Recovery Fund. These tools are essential for building a unified and sustainable adult education system. On the platform, every Latvian resident aged 18 and over can create their own individual learning account (ILA), which is a digital account for an individual. It allows to store information about person's previous education and professional experience, as well as documents certifying person's education. 

Employed and self-employed persons from the age of 18 can apply for the most up-to-date training offer until 30 April 2025 by creating an individual learning account, choosing from 64 educational programs, which are offered in 14 educational institutions throughout Latvia.
The offer includes educational programs in a number of sectors, including:

• Energy,
• Construction and real estate management,
• Manufacture of electronic and optical equipment, information and communication technologies,
• Timber industry,
• Metalworking, mechanical engineering and mechanical engineering.

Participants are offered the opportunity to improve existing skills or acquire new ones by choosing one of 46 vocational education modules, sets of modules or 18 study courses and study modules in higher education institutions. Depending on the type and content of educational programmes, they are offered to be acquired both fully remotely and in person or partially in person, partially remotely in all regions of Latvia. The amount of training varies depending on the program:

• Vocational education modules: 37–130 hours,
• Modular sets: 72–216 hours,
• Study courses: 75–160 hours,
• Study modules: 64–240 hours.

Most of the costs of training are covered by co-financing from the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) and the state budget. Participants must ensure a co-payment:

• 10% in vocational training modules and modules of modules,
• 30% in study courses and study modules.

For persons from poor or low-income households, as well as refugees and persons with alternative status, training is free of charge. 

Any employed or self-employed person from the age of 18 can participate in the project, regardless of educational level. As a matter of priority, employed persons with completed or incomplete basic education or general secondary education, employed persons aged 50 and over, as well as refugees and persons with alternative status, are invited to participate in the project, offering to acquire skills in better-paid and in-demand professions in accordance with the requirements of the labour market. 

In general, the platform allows learners to find the most suitable education programme based on their needs, including continuous vocational education programmes, professional development education programmes, non-formal education programmes, distance learning programmes, modular vocational education programmes, higher education courses and modules. 

The ILA approach supports recognition of professional competences acquired outside the formal education system. It follows the example of similar initiatives in other countries, such as France, by covering direct educational costs such as tuition fees, as well as associated expenses such as transportation cost for disadvantaged groups. Unlike in Denmark, the ILA approach does not cover learner remuneration during their studies, leading more to an evening and weekend learning schedule.

2024

The Survey of Adult Skills reveals adult competences in the main areas of information processing and allows to measure the productivity of human capital  

In December 2024, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) announced the results of the Adult Skills Survey of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC). The study measured the skills of adults aged 16-65 in the main areas of information processing – literacy, numeracy, and adaptive problem solving. The numeracy of Latvian adults was evaluated with 263 points, which corresponds to the average performance of 31 countries that participated in the study. Adaptive problem-solving skills of Latvian adults were evaluated with 244 points, which is slightly below the OECD average (251 points). Literacy, - that is also closely related to problem-solving, - as understanding and evaluation of texts of varying degrees of complexity for Latvian adults corresponds to 248 points, which is below the average level of OECD countries (260 points).   

The study reveals that the highest performance in literacy in Latvia is achieved by women who have acquired higher education in the field of STEM (sciences, technology, engineering and mathematics), their average score is 284 points. Only 6% of adults in Latvia achieve the highest levels of skills in literacy, which is half the share of the OECD average (12%). These adults are able to understand and evaluate long, information-saturated texts on several pages, to grasp complex or hidden meanings, and to use preliminary knowledge to understand texts and complete tasks. 

In numeracy and adaptive problem solving, the share of Latvian adults at the highest skill levels is close to the OECD average – 12% in Latvia and 14% in the OECD average in numeracy, and, respectively, 3% and 6% in adaptive problem solving.  

In March 2025, the OECD published the Survey of Adult Skills 2023 Data Analysis Manual, which allows to organize a further analysis of the survey results. For Latvia, it is important to get an answer to the question of how to increase adult literacy skills performance. The Finnish example is worth studying, because Finland is one of the few countries that was able to show a significant increase in literacy skills of adults in the last decade. 

Latvia participated in the Adult Skills Survey for the first time, thanks also to support from the European Social Fund and Erasmus+ programme. Latvia participated in the second cycle of OECD PIAAC, which started in 2018 (the first cycle took place in 2011-2018). In Latvia, adults’ surveys and tests at respondents' residences took place between October 2022 and June 2023, and 6563 adults participated in the survey. The sample was created to be representative, counting from about 1.2 million residents aged 16-65 who lived in the country at the time of data collection, regardless of ethnicity, citizenship, or language status. It was also ensured that the refusal to participate in the study did not lead to a significant deviation in the representativeness of the sample. 

2023

Modern vocational education content will be created with the support of European Union funds

With the support of European Union (EU) funds in the amount of more than 10.3 million euros, the creation of modern vocational education and training curriculum will continue, providing students with skills necessary for the labour market. This is foreseen by the regulations of the EU funds program prepared by the Ministry of Education and Science, which were approved by the government in December. 

With the support of EU funds:

• new teaching and methodological tools will be developed,
• the learning process based on the working environment will be improved,
• the digital platform of the vocational qualifications system will be created,
• cooperation with industries and educational institutions will be strengthened for the improvement of training programmes. 

It is planned to develop new teaching and methodical tools for learning vocational education and training modules and sample test programmes for modules, as well as to implement their approbation. It is planned that teaching and methodological resources will be developed for at least 500 professional competence modules, primarily in the thematic area of STEM. It is planned to invest at least three million euros in the development of teaching and methodological tools. 

It is expected that the digital platform of the Professional Qualifications System will be created, which will provide opportunities to improve the process of development, implementation, and licensing of VET programmes necessary for the labour market. Likewise, the digital platform will also improve the accreditation of VET institutions, as well as help prevent the fragmentation of the educational and training offer. 

With the planned support, the training process based on the work environment also will be improved. It will help VET institutions in creating medium and long-term cooperation with companies for the implementation of work-based learning. The project of improving the content and offer of vocational education and training will be implemented by the National Centre for Education in cooperation with the Confederation of Latvian Employers, the Cooperation Council of Agricultural Organizations, the Latvian Free Trade Union, and VET schools that carry out methodological work. The implementation of the project is planned until 2029.

A uniform procedure for admission to professional education programmes is established

In May 2023, the Government approved the regulation prepared by the Ministry of Education and Science on the procedures for admission to professional education programmes and exclusions from them. The Regulation on the procedure for admission to professional education programmes and exclusions from them (Noteikumi par uzņemšanas kārtību profesionālās izglītības programmās un atskaitīšanu no tām) determine uniform requirements and the procedure by which persons are admitted, transferred to the next course, class or group of vocational basic education, vocational education, vocational upper-secondary education, vocational further education, professional development education and vocationally oriented education programmes.

Until now, the procedures for admission to professional education programmes, organization of entrance exams, as well as transfer to the next course or deduction from the professional education programme were determined by the internal regulations of educational institutions and their founders.

The new rules stipulate:

• requirements for registering a person in order to be admitted to start learning the programme, as well as the information specified in the application;
• the conditions and procedure in which the educational institution organizes entrance examinations, which can be both a competition for the evaluations contained in a person's previously obtained educational document and a test of previous professional knowledge and skills;
• conditions for transferring to the next course, class or group, if the programme has more than one study course, class, group and if the requirements set out in the national education standard and professional education programme are met, providing for the acquisition of a lower level professional qualification, the possibility of obtaining a part of the professional qualification, if the student unable to complete the entire programme due to insufficient skills or knowledge;
• if the previously started acquisition of professional education is interrupted at some point and the student must be excluded from the study of the programme, she or he can apply for admission to continue education in the later study stages of the programme in accordance with the procedure for recognizing a person's competence for admission to the later study stages of the vocational education programme.