02 - Lithuania - Ongoing debates and future developments
Reducing the levels of emigration of young talented people remains an issue of utmost importance Of
equal importance is the necessity to develop programmes designed to bring back the "drained brains"
– scientists and scholars, by creating attractive possibilities and favourable work conditions for them in
Lithuania and by adopting the necessary legal acts. With this end in view, various projects are
launched, the implementation of which is supported by the allocations from the EU Structural Funds.
The Ministry of Education and Science is planning to elaborate a blueprint programme for the return to
Lithuania of high qualification specialists. As this is a complex problem falling within the areas of
competence of several ministries, there are various stakeholders participating in the process.
In the higher education quality area, there are plans to introduce amendments to the legal acts
regulating the quality assessment process. The Development Plan measures provide for the
establishment of the Research and Higher Education Monitoring and Analysis Centre by the end of
2007. The elaboration of the draft measures for the implementation of the second stage of the
Development Plan (2008–2010), which is scheduled for the end of 2007, is likely to give rise to
considerable discussion.
The new needs and challenges the Lithuanian society faces today encourage
the academic community of the country, employers, politicians and students to actively participate in
the debate on the necessity for a change in higher education that would enable it to keep up with the
society that is becoming increasingly modernized, and to accomplish its mission – to ensure the
competitiveness of the country and to meet the needs of its citizens. A resolution on the remuneration
of the work of scholars and scientists in higher education and research institutions, other researchers
and teachers in higher education has already been drafted.
Elaboration of draft amendments to the Law on Higher Education and the Law on Research and
Higher Education, which are aimed at streamlining financing, upgrading the governance of higher
education, establishing the demand for specialists and providing support to students, is scheduled for
2007.
Beginning with 2007, college graduates will be awarded a Professional Bachelor’s degree and/or a
professional qualification. The Professional Bachelor’s qualification degree was legalized by the 2006
Law on Higher Education. Colleges will be able to grant it after they had successfully completed the
assessment procedure and obtained the Ministry’s approval. The secondary legal acts regulating the
conditions, procedures and the issue of a diploma Diplomas certifying the qualification degree will be
amended in 2007. Respective amendments to the General Classification of the study areas and fields
of consecutive and non-consecutive studies at higher education institutions in Lithuania were approved
by the Government at the beginning of 2007.
Institutions:
Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania
Eurydice - the information network on education in Europe
Date: 2009
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