Governments across European Union (EU) and OECD member countries recognise that high-quality external evaluation and quality assurance (QA) has the potential to enhance the quality and relevance of the education and training offered by higher education institutions (HEIs) and vocational education and training (VET) providers. Dedicated agencies tasked with assuring the quality and labour market relevance of teaching and learning in higher education and VET have supported the establishment of internal QA systems in education and training institutions. However, the work conducted by QA agencies is only one aspect of public policy to promote the quality and relevance of teaching and learning. Increasingly, governments are reflecting on how they can mobilise other policy levers and actors in the system to support quality enhancement.
The Lithuanian Government is committed to improving the quality, coherence and effectiveness of its external evaluation and QA systems for higher education and VET. It wants to build a wider eco-system of external supports to help teaching staff in VET and higher education institutions enhance their teaching practices, and to recognise pedagogical innovation. The Government is also reflecting on how it can recalibrate other key policy areas, such as the public funding system, the approach to collecting and using system-level data on teaching and learning quality, or the governance of the network of VET and higher education programmes and providers, to influence teaching quality and drive skills development in Lithuania.
This report, produced as part of the Technical Support Implementation (TSI) project “Strengthening the system of evaluation and quality assurance in higher education and vocational education and training in Lithuania”, assesses Lithuania’s approach to assuring and enhancing the quality and relevance of teaching and learning in higher education and VET. Using this assessment, the report offers recommendations and a roadmap to strengthen the external evaluation and QA systems implemented by the Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education (SKVC) and the Qualifications and Vocational Education and Training Development Centre (KPMPC). It also offers recommendations and a roadmap to support the development of a wide range of other quality-focused policies for higher education and VET in Lithuania.
The analysis, recommendations and roadmap contained in this report are based on analyses of the Lithuanian higher education and VET systems, as well as a review of international policies and practices in nine comparator systems selected for their relevance to Lithuania: Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Scotland (United Kingdom). Key stakeholders from Lithuania’s VET and higher education sectors were closely involved in all stages of the project, through interviews, national roundtable events, an online international peer learning event, and site visits to a sample of Lithuanian HEIs and VET institutions.