Adult education in Latvia is becoming more accessible, but some still face barriers - OECD

RIGA - Adult education in Latvia is becoming more accessible and diverse, but a significant part of the population still faces barriers to access, especially the lowest income groups and those employed in small businesses, according to the latest Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report on global trends in adult education.

The report analyzes the results of the 2023 Adult Skills Assessment Survey, the Ministry of Education and Science told LETA.

While access to learning has increased, one in four adults still report barriers to participation. In OECD countries, the most commonly cited reasons are lack of time, family responsibilities and financial constraints. Women, young people and the highly educated particularly highlighted these.

In Latvia, on the other hand, barriers such as insufficient access to or availability of attractive learning opportunities are more frequently mentioned than in other countries.

OECD data also confirms that people with higher incomes are more likely to engage in learning. Latvia has one of the largest gaps between participation of high and low income groups, at over 35 percentage points. This means that the lowest earners are less than twice as likely as the wealthiest to have participated in learning, and only less than 40 percent of the lowest income group have participated in learning. This gap is also pronounced in Chile and Portugal.

Despite positive trends, overall participation in adult learning is stagnating or even declining in many countries. In the OECD, on average, only 40 percent of adults participate in some form of learning during the year, with the largest declines in countries such as South Korea and Israel.

In Latvia, almost 30 percent of employees in large companies have received training in the last four weeks. This is the highest among OECD countries, with an average of 15 percent. At the same time, this training is often linked to health and safety requirements, rather than targeting the development of productivity-enhancing skills, according to the OECD.

The situation is less encouraging in small and medium-sized enterprises, where participation in training is significantly lower and training opportunities are limited.

In Latvia, 65 percent of learning takes place on the job, while 35 percent takes place off the job. At the same time, compared to the OECD average, Latvia has a relatively high share of out-of-work learning.

More than 80 percent of participants in Latvia consider non-formal learning to be useful for their professional work, while 6 percent consider it to have been completely useless. These figures are ahead of countries such as Japan and South Korea, where only around a quarter of adults rated learning as very useful, in preference to formal learning provision. In Latvia, only 6 percent of adults are engaged in formal education.

Across the OECD, digital skills are increasingly important in non-formal adult learning and have become one of the most widespread areas of non-formal learning.

Latvia is one of only four OECD countries where all vocational secondary education programs include practical training in an enterprise. This gives young people the opportunity to learn practical skills in a real working environment.