Latvian schools need overhaul

RIGA - Although vocational education reform should have begun a long time ago, it is doubtful if the recent optimization and modernization of vocational education institutions will solve the problem of the lack of qualified workforce, participants agreed in a debate organized by Nozare.lv. Businesspeople complain increasingly that there is a lack of qualified medium-level workforce in the country. This concern is voiced most often by chemical and pharmaceutical companies, also metal processing enterprises. However, businesspeople doubt if the reform that started recently will solve the problem in their respective sectors.

Latvian Chemical and Pharmaceutical Companies Association board chairman, Vitalijs Skrivelis, believes that the situation in the sector is dissatisfactory, and that reform will not solve the sector’s requirements. “It is possible that the sector’s requirements are so specific that the Ministry of Education and Science is unable to meet them. Chemistry is taught in vocational schools and high schools, but teaching methods are 20 years old, and the equipment employed in these classes is 30 years old. This means that there are no up-to-date schools in Latvia where the production process could be simulated, and each company has to devote six to eight months to complete the education of a vocational school graduate,” complained Skrivelis.

Chemistry and pharmacy is the fifth largest processing and manufacturing industry in Latvia, and at the same, the sector with the greatest productivity, if calculated according to turnover per employee, Skrivelis pointed out.
The Education and Science Ministry’s Vocational and General Education Department Director Janis Gaigals said that the problem was in part due to the fact that there were many industries and sectors, and each had many associations and professional organizations. This is why it is often not easy for the ministry to have the viewpoint of an entire national economy sector or industry, he explained.