International patterns and competitiveness for the new Latvian Higher Education System

By Charo Navarro Mateo. Latvia’s Higher Education system is in  a sad shape. The low level of research, the weak quality of programs and insufficient financing explains the importance which Robert Kilis, Minister of Education and Science, takes in the reform he is leading. The “Action Plan for Higher Education and Science Reforms in 2013-2014” is the current step to improve the system.
Since Kilis started as Minister of Education and Science, he has set his task to make reforms such as revising the accreditation system to be accepted internationally and a new set of programs based in a more entrepreneurial basis. Now, new measures are coming up as a new model of financing to make the system sustainable economically.
But why is Latvian Higher Education facing such problems?
Studying for society’s necessities
From the point of view of the minister, the main problems start with the imbalance between students studying sciences and humanities, which don’t adapt to the current Latvian economic and social necessities.  The fact is that there are too many students studying humanitarian sciences and too few studying engineering and natural sciences. According to official data from 2011, from 120,000 students, 80,000 were studying social sciences, which means more than half of the students. In this sense, the Latvian Higher Education System cannot supply a sufficient number of science specialists required by the national economy.
The state is trying to resolve this problem by reducing financing for the budget to social and law students, and channeling these funds to support exact and engineering sciences. In this way, for the Ministry, the priority aim is in the basis of the university: to increase the share of highly qualified professionals in the priority fields of the labor market (natural sciences, mathematics, engineering, health care, environmental sciences and creative industries), by evaluating the efficiency of master and doctoral studies on a regular basis and by developing new innovative study programs. Read more...