Ensuring Quality Vocational and Higher Education in Lithuania

Report

10 April 2025

4. Evaluation and quality assurance of vocational education and training in Lithuania

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Abstract

This chapter offers an analysis of Lithuania’s regulatory framework and external quality assurance system for vocational education and training (VET) and provides recommendations and a roadmap on how they can be modernised to strengthen the quality and labour market relevance of teaching and learning.

4.1. Lithuania’s regulatory framework and external quality assurance system for VET

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The following sections analyse Lithuania’s regulatory framework for VET and external quality assurance (QA) system. They analyse how VET programmes are structured, how they interact with and are informed by the labour market, and how QA processes support VET providers to deliver these programmes.

4.1.1. Regulation of the design and delivery of study programmes in VET

This section first reviews how VET programmes in Lithuania are structured, in particular looking at how the formation of professional standards forms the backbone of VET qualifications. It reviews how these professional standards are produced and how they support VET programmes to meet and respond to changes in labour market needs. It then reviews how the structure of apprenticeships enables VET programmes to integrate into the labour market and support the demands of students and employers alike.

Professional standards harmonise the structure of VET programmes, but impose constraints on institutions’ responsiveness to the needs of students and employers

Lithuania’s VET Act lays out the general requirements for the design and delivery of VET programmes (Republic of Lithuania, 2018[1]). A separate order produced by the ŠMSM of Education, Science and Sports provides greater details on the specific requirements of VET programmes in terms of their registration, modules and content (Republic of Lithuania, 2018[2]). These two documents are supplemented by 24 “profesiniai standartai” (hereafter, professional standards), providing details on the educational content and learning outcomes to be achieved in different VET programmes. The professional standards development and update is organised by the Qualifications and Vocational Education and Training Development Agency (KPMPC) in consultation with KPMPC-coordinated sectoral committees (KPMPC, n.d.[3]), which then directly underpin the content of approved VET programmes. To interpret the legislation on professional standards, KPMPC has produced a methodology document that describes the process of preparation for any new professional standards (KPMPC, 2019[4]).

Professional standards provide a detailed and structured framework that outline the expected knowledge and competences an individual should possess to demonstrate competency in a particular field. Competencies are broken down into sets that describe different work processes within an overarching set of standards. For a formal VET programme to exist, it must relate directly to a set of existing professional standards.1 There are professional standards produced for 24 distinct economic sectors, containing some 449 different qualifications (see Table 4.1). However, these standards also limit the ability of programmes to adapt and change to new technologies and skills demands in the field.

The professional standards contain an average of almost 19 qualifications per set, with construction describing the most discrete qualifications (58) and architecture describing the fewest (2). There is scope to register “cross-sectoral” qualifications, which may potentially relate to overlapping sectors. There are 14 such qualifications described within the standards. For example, the qualification titles of “chemical analysis engineer” and “hydrologist” are assigned to the environmental protection standards. The detailed and very disaggregated set of qualifications underlines the needs for these standards to be kept up-to-date, to reflect the economy’s ever changing composition of jobs and skills requirements.

Professional standards should outline the main qualifications, the underlying qualification units that comprise the main qualification and a formulation of the competences for these qualifications. These competences should include a description of the activity, the context and tools/equipment for this activity and the requirements for successful completion.

Professional standards by sector
Accommodation and catering services (8[2])	Real estate operations, financial, accounting and insurance services (17)	Education and library activities (18[2])
Environmental protection (13)	Service administration, service of institutions and safety assurance activities (9)	Transport and storage services (37)
Architecture (2)	Printing, media and advertising (28[1])	Textile, clothing and leather goods manufacturing (36)
Chemical product manufacturing (10[2])	Trade (4)	Tourism, sports, entertainment and recreation services (13)
Manufacturing of electrical equipment, computer, electronic and optical products (15)	Manufacturing of basic pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical preparations (6)	Visual arts services and fine arts production (29)
Information and communication technology (19[1])	Social services (4[2])	Public administration (12)
Machinery and equipment manufacturing, vehicle manufacturing, maintenance and repair (14[1])	Health care and beauty services (35[1])	Manufacture and repair of welded and soldered metal products (excluding machinery and equipment) and vehicles (excluding motor vehicles) and their equipment (21)
Wood, furniture, paper and paper products manufacturing (11)	Construction industry (58)	Agriculture, forestry, fisheries, veterinary activities and food production (30[2))

Source: Adapted from KPMPC (2024[5]), List of professional standards, www.kpmpc.lt/kpmpc/kvalifikaciju-formavimas/standartai-2/profesiniai-standartai (accessed on 26 May 2024).

Introduction of new professional standards can be slow and administratively burdensome, hindering labour market relevance of VET provision

To offer a new VET programme, it must relate to an existing set of professional standards. If this is not the case, an application must first be made to KPMPC to introduce a new set of professional standards (Republic of Lithuania, 2019[6]). While the legislation outlines the expected timeframes in which updates must occur, in practice it can be challenging to initiate new standards in reasonable timeframes.

To formulate a new set of programme standards, KPMPC must form a working group using the relevant ministries of the Republic of Lithuania in accordance with the management areas assigned to the minister, representatives of competent institutions, government institutions, vocational training providers, research and study institutions, and social partners. This working group then submits any proposals to its controlling sectoral committee. The working group must draft an initial list of the qualifications of the economic sector or part of it assigned to qualification levels and the qualification units that make them up. This list is then submitted to the relevant sectoral committee, who reviews, amends, and approves the final set of professional standards. Members of committees must have either work experience in the field of study; experience in preparing or evaluating study, professional training programmes, professional or professional training standards; or be representing social partners and having at least three years of work experience in companies, institutions or organisations of the relevant economic sector (Republic of Lithuania, 2019[7]).

Initiatives to update existing professional standards can be submitted to KPMPC. These include incorporating new qualification descriptors into existing standards, or modifying qualifications which are already present. The initiator (for example, the branch of an employers’ association, a national authority, or an education provider) prepares the proposal in collaboration with other stakeholders and submits it in writing, together with a justification of need for changes. KPMPC then analyses the proposal and submits it for the consideration to a relevant sectoral professional committee.

Once professional standards have been determined or updated, programmes must comprise of modules which ensure that the qualifications contained within these standards are covered in the programme curriculum. The OECD team heard from stakeholders on its fact-finding mission that the process to determine whether a new programme either meets existing standards or requires new ones can be bureaucratic and lengthy. One institution mentioned that they had been trying to agree specifications on a new programme for the past four years. However, this was not a universally held view. Some stakeholders did not feel that the process was as burdensome. But there was a recognition that it may be easier for larger VET institutions, with closer existing engagement to KPMPC to obtain approvals, than for smaller institutions and private providers.

The strict requirements on curriculum design constrain innovation and responsiveness to the needs of students and employers

Once approved and implemented, the content of individual professional standards is overseen by sectoral professional committees, which means that the extent to which standards are updated depends on the ability of each individual committee to consider changes in their profession. Eighteen sectoral committees cover the entirety of the VET programmes available in Lithuania. The extended scope that each committee covers means that in practice it may be difficult for an individual committee to provide in-depth, targeted and timely advice for the development of professional standards in their area (see Box 4.1 for an example). Article 13 of the VET Act stipulates that professional standards must be updated at least once every five years (Republic of Lithuania, 2018[1]), but KPMPC do not have the resources to ensure that this routinely occurs.

Box 4.1. Some committees face challenges to regularly update professional standards

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The sectoral committees cover the broad range of sectors in the Lithuanian economy and are organised into eighteen different committees: Accommodation & Event Services, Trade Services, Financial Services, Utility & Waste Management, Cultural Activities Organisation, Wood & Paper Manufacturing, Chemical & Petroleum Production, Heavy Manufacturing & Repair, Administrative Services, Media & Publishing, Construction & Engineering, Education & Research, Textile & Leather Production, Tech & Telecommunications, Transportation & Storage, Public Management & Safety, Agriculture & Food Production, Health & Social. Committees range in membership size from 12 to 30 members.

For example, the heavy manufacturing and repair committee has responsibility for the manufacture and repair of basic metals and metal products, computer, electronic and optical products, electrical equipment, motor vehicles and other vehicles, machinery and equipment. The committee has 13 members. This includes 2 members from government ministries, 2 from trade unions, 2 representing college and rectors associations and 5 across different industry associations. Therefore, across a very wide-ranging and technical domain, it seems challenging for this sectoral committee to easily convene detailed and technical debates on programme standards, given the range of expertise involved. For example, any updates to optical standards would rely (mainly) on the expertise of the delegated member of the Lithuanian Laser Association for technical advice. This gives rise to two problems; a) ensuring sufficient heed is paid to having a broad and comprehensive discussion on programme standards, that incorporates sufficient technical expertise in a particular domain and b) meaning that updates in subject fields critically depend on the engagement of a few experts to ensure that issues are timely considered.

Source: Based on KPMPC (n.d.[8]), Sectoral professional committees, www.kpmpc.lt/kpmpc/kvalifikaciju-formavimas/sektoriniai-profesiniai-komitetai/ (accessed on 2 March 2025).

However, stakeholders in Lithuania have conveyed concerns around the responsiveness of the individual sectoral committees, for which the activity depends upon the commitments of its members, who are participating in the committees voluntarily on top of existing day jobs. The lack of responsiveness of a committee can mean that having professional standards which are compelling, comprehensive and up-to-date can be more difficult than stakeholders would like. It also operates somewhat as a lottery. Those programmes with more responsive sectoral committees are able to be more nimble in the face of change. Those with a less engaged committee find it harder to adapt developments in education and the labour market. Finding a way to ensure that committees have a clear work agenda and sufficient resources will be crucial to ensuring that VET programmes adapt well to changing economic demands.

Programme structure is standardised across VET programmes and gives little room for flexibility or innovation

A formal vocational training programme must consist of a set of general, compulsory and optional modules (see Table 4.2). The scope of the module is determined by learning credits. To be registered, a formal vocational training programme must have a set of descriptors including a description of the formal vocational training programme. The description must include the formal programme name, a state code, a qualification name and code and the qualification level.

There is the potential in legislation for quite a wide variation in total formal VET study time, where qualifications can be anywhere between 30 and 110 total study points. The precise total will depend upon what is specified in the professional standards for that particular qualification. This means that in practice, while qualifications are ostensibly delivered to the same levels in the International Classification of Education (ISCED), they may confer quite different levels of training in the subject field. The usual scope of a one-year formal vocational training programme is 60 learning credits.

	Initial vocational education and training (IVET)		Continuing vocational education and training (CVET)
Total Credits	30 - 110		20 - 90
Formulation of single study credit	22 academic hours + 5 independent hours		18 academic hours + 9 independent hours
Practical / theoretical split	70% practical training minimum
Mandatory modules
Introductory	1 or 2 credits
Safe behaviour in extreme situations	1 credit		Integrated into core modules
Regulation of physical activity	1 or 5 credits
Health and safety	2 credits		Integrated into core modules
Core Modules	20 - 90 total credits (in modules of either 5, 10, 15 or 20 credits)
Optional Modules	5 or 10 credits	Not applicable
Final Placement	5 or 10 credits

Note: Where modules have different potential credit points, the lower value is for courses with 60 total credit points or fewer.

Source: Republic of Lithuania (2021[9]), Order on the Approval of the Requirements for Competence Assessment and Recognition Institutions and the Description of their Accreditation Procedure, www.e-tar.lt/portal/lt/legalAct/82981860da4011eb9f09e7df20500045 (accessed on 17 February 2025).

For IVET students general introductory modules are prescribed, adding 1-2 months of total study time. CVET students are excused the introductory and regulation of physical activity modules and the other mandatory modules are integrated into the other core modules in the education. Optional modules are offered only to IVET students and are designed to meet the needs of the individual student and/or regional employers.

The introductory module familiarises students with professional activities in the economic sector and the specifics of professional learning, as well as including a diagnostic assessment of available competencies. Core modules are provided according to the relevant professional standards. There is a fair degree of variation permitted into different module length from five study credits up to 20. Within a programme there is a sufficient degree of flexibility built into programme design. However, across programmes delivered by different institutions, there is no flexibility for institutions to alter the composition of pre-defined modules according to their preferences. This can happen only by virtue of the use of optional modules.

It is recommended that the volume of one module for acquiring the competences constituting the qualification is 5, 10, 15 or 20 learning credits, except in cases where the scope of learning of the qualification or the competences constituting it is determined by international, European Union or national legal acts. If provided for in the professional standard, the formal vocational training programme may offer modules for the acquisition of specialisation-related competences, from which the learner may choose one or more modules.

A final module with a work placement is designed to consolidate practical skills and prepare for competency assessment. It comprises 5 or 10 learning credits. This module is delivered at the end of the training programme to provide students with better links with employers for whom they may soon be applying for jobs.

Despite some freedom in VET teaching programmes in terms of the pedagogical methods employed by teachers, the programme descriptions themselves allow little flexibility in content. The detailed set of procedures for programmes list the expected learning outcomes from each module and leave little room for flexibility within the module. The only departure teachers can make from the core path is via the implementation of optional modules and these optional modules are also prescribed. For example, in the Cook’s programme, 5 study credits can be allotted to either preparing national dishes; preparing barbeque dishes; or preparing sweet dishes (KPMPC, 2024[10]).

The lack of flexibility within programmes and modules was met with mixed opinion by the teachers that met with the OECD team. Some find the flexibility to teach programmes according to the learning outcomes specified and modules available sufficient to ensure that programmes are adaptive to current technology and local demands, while others expressed a desire for further flexibility in course design. However, it was felt that the process of incorporating any ad hoc revisions into core professional standards and course descriptions was too slow and cumbersome, so that programmes updates were not nimble enough.

Apprenticeships are insufficiently distinct from school-based VET, their development in certain professional fields remains slow, and they lack a quality assurance framework

This section examines how the design of apprenticeships integrates work-based learning into a distinctive VET offer and analyses the extent to which they help to deliver high-quality and relevant education and training.

Most of the distinction in VET programmes around study format is based on the distinction between school and work-based learning (apprenticeships). Despite government efforts to increase the number of students studying as apprentices, improving the cohesiveness and identity of an apprenticeship programme is important to crystallise its image for students and employers alike. Alongside these efforts, the adoption of digital classroom management could enhance programme administration.

Article 19 of the VET Act specifies that VET may be offered in both school and apprenticeship forms, and a set of accompanying regulations determine the precise implementation of apprenticeships (Republic of Lithuania, 2018[1]; 2019[11]);. There is currently a government target of 8% of all students in Lithuania studying VET in the form of an apprenticeship – the current median of students studying in apprenticeship is 22% (ŠVIS, 2024[12]) and apprenticeship training for provided in 43 out of the 44 public VET institutions.

However, apprenticeship statistics should be interpreted with caution, as there is limited practical distinction between a school-based VET programme and apprenticeships. Lithuanian law gives providers a lot of flexibility in how they design apprenticeships. An apprenticeship may be applied to at least one module of a formal or non-formal VET programme or for two months or more. At its minimum, an apprenticeship could comprise as little as 5% of work-based learning in a programme. This loose interpretation of apprenticeship gives flexibility for VET providers and employers to engage in collaboration. However, it also makes it more difficult to establish a clear mechanism by which to formally encourage them at system level. As noted, since all students must engage in a final work placement module of five to ten credit points, it is possible for schools to achieve this target solely by placing students into an apprenticeship for this short placement period.

Management staff and teachers in VET institutions reported to the OECD team that the development of apprenticeships remains slow for certain programmes, especially those preparing for employment in sectors comprised of high numbers of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Compared with industries with dominating larger firms, it may be challenging SMEs to offer training that fully aligns with the range of demands of the descriptors included in the professional standards – as noted above, the professional standards for some sectors are highly detailed. These requirements can limit full-scale adoption of employers to those that can provide apprentices with the full set of professional standards. This is mitigated somewhat by the allowance of up to 30% of training time to be conducted via the co‑ordinating VET institution, and by the fact that an employer only has to offer one module. However, it raises questions as to the practical implementation of apprenticeships by employers and the benefits that employers and students may obtain from them. While a national target may not be a bad idea per se, improving the disaggregation of targets by professional field and programme type may aid more accurate planning.

Finally, Lithuania lacks a clear quality assurance framework for apprenticeships. Chapter 6 of the apprenticeship regulations does not set out detailed requirements for providers (Republic of Lithuania, 2019[7]). The legislation states that quality should be managed in accordance with the general QA requirements for VET. But the mechanisms by which VET institutions should judge the quality of these apprenticeships is not stipulated and there are no formal reporting requirements on the assessment of such partnerships. While the general VET Act stipulates that quality assurance must follow the European guidelines on VET quality assurance, there is specific mention of the European Framework for Quality and Effective Apprenticeships (EU Council of Ministers, 2018[13]) in the accompanying regulations on apprenticeship.

4.1.2. External evaluation and quality assurance in VET

This section examines Lithuania’s external quality assurance framework for VET. It starts by offering a broad overview of the system, followed by an analysis of the standards, methods and procedures used by KPMPC and the ŠMSM to evaluate VET providers. It reviews how these processes support or hinder the VET system’s quality enhancement and labour market relevance. In particular, it looks at how different elements of the system fit together and whether they coalesce to form a consistent and coherent quality environment. It then reviews how the system of monitoring in VET supports providers to deliver these VET programmes effectively for students and employers alike.

VET external quality procedures are still relatively new and are yet to be properly embedded

In Lithuania, the Qualifications and Vocational Education and Training Development Centre (KPMPC) was established back in 1996, but it is only in 2018 that it has been given a legal mandate to periodically review the quality of existing provision (Republic of Lithuania, 2018[1]). As a result, the system is much younger than the external QA system that exists in higher education, where the Study Quality Assessment Centre (SKVC) has been periodically reviewing the quality of teaching and learning at programme level since the nineties, and in 2011 started to assess quality at institution level (see Chapter 2). Prior to this, the quality of VET in Lithuania was primarily assured through ex-ante accreditation of new VET providers and programmes by KPMPC, and annual performance reviews of VET directors by the ŠMSM (aside from the internal QA processes institutions have put in place themselves).

Since the introduction of the legal requirement for VET providers to be periodically reviewed, 28 out of the 44 public institutions have undergone an external assessment by KPMPC, in co-operation with the National Agency for Education (NŠA). In July 2024, the NŠA was removed as the responsible authority for external quality assurance in VET and KPMPC was named in its place (SMSM, 2024[14]). The purpose of these reviews – and KPMPC’s work in general – is to ensure that VET providers have well-functioning internal QA systems in place, aligned with the European Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET) framework cited above. In its review, the OECD team has found several challenges that need to be addressed to streamline, embed and enhance the infrastructure that Lithuania has put in place to support the quality of teaching and learning, including work-based learning (WBL), in VET.

The ex-ante approval of new VET providers and programmes is highly procedural, and labour market relevance of programmes is only ensured through professional standards

The preparation and accreditation of new VET programmes is co-ordinated by KPMPC and is formulaic in nature, mainly focused on adherence to procedural obligations on resources and inputs. Sitting underneath programme registration is a strict alignment to professional standards (see previous section). These guide a more holistic view of programmes in terms of their alignment to the demands for skills in the labour market, but there are no checks on how providers themselves are meeting local labour market needs.

The introduction of new VET programmes requires the development of new professional standards, which link educational needs to labour market demands

The process of registering a VET programme begins with the formulation of professional standards, which map out required knowledge and competence, and are used to structure and formulate VET programmes. A formal VET programme cannot exist unless it maps onto an approved professional standard (see above).

The concept underpinning the professional standards is that they should provide a good link between the demands of the labour market and the provision in the education system, and this is ensured through the guidance on how they should be produced. To this extent, KPMPC stipulates that a mixed team should compile new professional standards. This should include at least three types of experts:

An education expert to lead the group - educated to at least master’s degree level, who has expertise in the formation of qualifications or in solving strategic issues in the relevant economic sector.
Educational representatives – individuals from vocational training or higher education institutions who understand the educational needs and frameworks.
Industry representatives – with at least five years of experience in the relevant field.

This group needs to conduct a sectoral analysis, replete with data collection from surveys, interviews and statistical data that supports the rationale underlying the need for professional standards in the sector. The group should produce a sectoral definition, describing the economic sector and its sub-sectors and list the qualifications within each of these. Each qualification should state its alignment with national and international qualification levels. The economic sectors should also be aligned to the established economic sectoral codes outlined in Lithuanian law (Republic of Lithuania, 2007[15]).

Employers are brought into decision-making on qualifications more broadly, through the review of proposed qualifications. A list of companies that are responsible and capable of conducting assessment of qualification competences is compiled. This should ideally comprise a mixture of small, medium and large companies (dependent on the size of the sector, 1-2 large companies, 4 medium and at least 10 small). These companies should operate using the latest modern technologies.

The compilation and registration of new professional standards is thus grounded in the labour market needs of the profession and utilises an array of inputs from employers and social partners to review, refine and co‑ordinate the final professional standards. Looking out from the composition of these standards towards the skills of graduates, an employer survey confirms that overall employers are satisfied with the skills that VET graduates possess. Seventy-eight percent of employers judged VET graduates technical skills to be very good or good and 63% judged their technical practical skills to be very good or good.

The registration of programmes is more procedural and based on existing professional standards

The formal registration of new VET programmes is highly procedural in nature and relies on the already established professional standards to demonstrate the programme’s link to labour market needs. Before a programme can be registered in the state register of study programmes, it has to be approved by KPMPC. This follows a series of steps. First, KPMPC must agree to the need of the programme. The criteria for approval are contained in the legislation for the development and registration of vocational training programmes (Republic of Lithuania, 2018[16]) and are restricted to a series of checks on that determines whether the programme’s inputs and processes align to those defined in regulation (see Table 4.3). KPMPC must use at least two members of the relevant sectoral professional standards committee, or specialists in the relevant field, to evaluate the prepared vocational training programme or its module(s). This ensures that new programmes are judged using professional knowledge of relevant specialists.

Standards	Focus					Labour market
Standards	Aims	Input	Process	Output	Outcomes	Labour market
1. Comply with the structural regulatory requirements (adheres to requirements on the scope of learning credits, the definition and sequencing of compulsory and optional modules- which differ for initial and continuing VET)			1
2. Suitably provides scope for acquiring the competencies provided in the programme, including modules to address these competencies, learning content and outcomes within these modules and evaluation of them	1
3. Comply with the methodological and material resources for training provided in the modules of the formal vocational training programme and the competence requirements of vocational teachers to properly teach the programme		1
4. Not repeat the competences contained in a formal vocational training programme previously submitted to the KPMPC	1

Note: OECD analysis based on Lithuanian legislation.

Source: Adapted from Republic of Lithuania (2018[2]), Approval Of Procedure For Development And Registration Of Vocational Training Programmes, https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/f32c88c2ee9511e89d4ad92e8434e309 (accessed 31 March 2025).

All formal VET programmes must then be registered in a centralised database. The VET Act stipulates that the procedure for preparation and registration of vocational training programmes shall be determined by the Minister of Education, Science and Sports (Republic of Lithuania, 2018[1]). The programme must be listed in the state register of study and training programmes and qualifications, owned by the national education agency (Nacionalinė švietimo agentūra, NŠA). The register collects data on formal vocational training, study or education programmes approved in accordance with the relevant legal acts. It consists of the theoretical and practical training subjects or modules, upon completion of which the relevant qualification is obtained. Registered data is published in the Open Information, Consulting, Orientation System (AIKOS). In AIKOS students can look for information on courses and how to apply for them.

The process of registration of a VET programme is considered in close conjunction with the relevant professional standard it is aligned to. This means that it is well linked to pre-defined professional needs and standards. Professional standards outline in exacting detail the competence requirements expected for those standards, and also provide for the qualification/programme titles. Therefore, programme registration represents the final administrative step, taking place after standards and programmes have been prepared. Registration ensures that the modular structure that is required in Lithuanian VET law is implemented. A criterion evaluating any potential duplication of existing programmes serves to reinforce the labour market alignment criteria in the implementation of professional standards. This helps to ensure that programmes are adequately focused on labour market need.

The accreditation of VET providers is limited to checking basic resources for education provision

The KPMPC conducts a compliance assessment of a VET provider has the necessary resources to offer a VET programme. This is based on a limited set of indicators laid down in legislation. Following this assessment, a decision is made to approve or reject the provider offering that programme. The SKVC must ratify the decision made by the KPMPC, because it has the legal power to license VET providers whereas the KPMPC does not. The applicant is then informed in writing. Table 4.4 outlines the criteria that institutions need to meet to gain a licence. As the table demonstrates, the issue of the licence is heavily input based and only seeks to establish whether the proposed institution has the capacity to deliver a formal VET programme based on the broad requirements established in legislation. There is no link to the labour market in this assessment, which is performed only via the professional standards creation.

Standards	Focus					Labour market
Standards	Aims	Input	Process	Output	Outcomes	Labour market
1. Qualification and competence requirements of teaching staff		1
2. Adequacy of training places, material and methodological resources to meet expected student numbers		1
3. Training facilities with sufficient material resources to ensure quality		1

Note: OECD analysis based on Lithuanian legislation.

Source: Adapted from SMSM (2023[17]), Order On The Approval Of The Rules For Licensing Formal Vocational Training, www.e-tar.lt/portal/lt/legalAct/bf155cc0433511ee9de9e7e0fd363afc (accessed 31 March 2025).

Prospective VET providers must submit documents verifying teacher qualifications, material and methodological training resources, and the legality of premises, including compliance with hygiene standards. Contracts for training resources and premises must cover the entire training period. An expert commission, consisting of at least three members, reviews applications. These experts may be KPMPC staff or individuals with VET experience. Site visits are mandatory for new providers or when doubts arise about training facilities or resources.

An expert commission (of at least three experts with relevant qualification formation experience, which can include KPMPC staff) prepares a report to determine whether a provider is ready to implement a formal VET programme. However, applications focus solely on the resources required for education, excluding broader considerations like strategic direction, student needs, or contributions to local businesses or communities. This narrow approach contrasts with the accreditation criteria for higher education institutions (see Chapter 2). This means that providers may be given a license without any evidence that the programme they seek to offer meets local student or employer demands.

The annual and periodic quality reviews of VET institutions and school director assessments could be tweaked and better aligned to improve consistency

The system of external quality assessment of VET institutions is conducted across two main domains. In the first instance, the ŠMSM conducts an assessment of each of the VET school directors. In the second, an external quality assessment at institutional level should be conducted at least every five years. Better alignment of these processes, both with each other and with the ongoing internal quality management of schools, would help to embed consistent quality management which has a clear strategic focus and delivery.

The regulatory focus of external assessment is towards enhancement but its emphasis on the harmony between internal and external assessment is not currently demonstrated

The process of external evaluation of VET institutions is governed by the VET Act which sets out the general principles and responsibilities (Republic of Lithuania, 2018[1]), and an executive order in which the process of evaluation is detailed (Republic of Lithuania, 2020[18]). According to this legislation, the external assessment of a VET institution involves appraising the quality of its activities based on self-evaluation conducted by the institution, with the participation of external experts. The ŠMSM of Education designates the body to conduct external evaluation of VET institutions. From 2020 to July 2024 it was the NŠA (Republic of Lithuania, 2020[18]), from July 2024 responsiblity has been transferred to KPMPC (Republic of Lithuania, 2024[19]). Assessment should occur at least once every five years.2

The legislation is clear that the purpose of evaluation should be to encourage institutions to improve the quality of their training. This evaluation should:

promote self-evaluation of the institutions performance quality and progress
encourage institutions to create better conditions for the students to achieve good quality education
help make decisions based on reliable data regarding the improvement of the provider's activities
improve existing and create new forms of providing assistance to providers and advising them.

The legislation frames external evaluation around a number of principles. These seek to set external evaluation out as a complementary process. It should take institiutional context into account, and be impartial and holistic in nature to provide a continuity of process to ensure continuous learning.

Clearly, the ambition within the legislation is to ensure quality checks focus more on enhancement, than on basic compliance checks on quality, but it remains to be seen whether the results of such assessments are used as such. For example, in some OECD countries, the results of school assessments are published, to promote transparency and allow greater information for potential students. However, the previous three years of external assessments in Lithuania are only available in summarised format and it is not clear which schools have been analysed.

One of the key principles that bears further scrutiny is the principle of unity between internal and external quality assurance of activities. Currently the strategic plans of schools, the annual monitoring indicators and the annual school director assessments may be at odds with each other. Several respondents in Lithuania raised the point that there is seemingly little co‑ordination in these elements of quality assurance, despite this being a central principle of the quality assurance architecture. Ensuring that these elements of the system are aligned and linked up is essential so that a common thread runs through institutional plans and management of the quality of their education.

The strategic quality plans of VET providers may not align with annual assessments

According to Article 54 of the law on education, every VET (and general) school should prepare a strategic plan, approved by the school’s council to set long-term and short-term priorities, goals and tasks of education, and define means for task implementation (Republic of Lithuania, 1991[20]). This plan should help schools to build a strategy for improvement to aid implementation of Lithuania’s national education strategy, a 10-year forward look that seeks to ensure Lithuania’s education system is modern, responsive and supports its economic needs.

Each VET institution manages its internal quality via the production these multi-year strategic plans, and it is separately held to account externally via VET director assessments with the ŠMSM. These two separate processes are not fully aligned. The internal strategic plans of schools must be published and are usually between three to five years in length. Individual institution councils review these plans and the delivery against them in collaboration with institutional leaders, and use them to internally manage quality. However, the assessment of VET directors performed by the ŠMSM does not always align with how schools manage quality in via their strategic plans.

The ŠMSM is involved in the quality assurance of schools via its function as the owner or joint owner of VET providers, but better alignment of its assessments with the internal quality management of schools would help to improve consistency. The ŠMSM is the direct owner of 27 of the 44 public VET providers and is a joint owner in another 17. This set-up also means that the ŠMSM has a seat in each of the schools’ councils, which co‑ordinate school activities, monitor performance and approve the schools’ strategic plans. Therefore, it has a role in setting both internal school strategic plans and the external assessment of leaders’ performance. The annual assessments determine the salary adjustments for school directors and also directly impact the renewal of their five-yearly contracts.

Despite the multi-year strategic plans forming the backbone of an infrastructure of enhancement in schools, the way in which they are reviewed and enforced – through annual performance reports and assessments – might limit schools’ ability to plan and prepare enhancement activities. The framework for the assessment of school directors is laid out in an executive order of the Minister of Education, Science and Sports (ŠMSM, 2024[21]). Chapter 3 of this order specifies that each year 3-5 tasks should be assigned to a school director. At least one of these tasks should be related to educational quality and at least one to institutional effectiveness.

However, these tasks set by the ŠMSM may or may not be related to the VET providers’ strategic plans. Some VET directors remarked to the OECD team that the tasks set by the ŠMSM are sometimes rather impromptu and can divert attention away from the core strategic objectives – including quality enhancement – of the school. The freedom for the ŠMSM to set the 3-5 annual tasks for school principals, is independent of the objectives within the strategic plans of schools. Revising legislation such that annual tasks are directly determined from strategic plans may help schools to put in place more coherent and consistent plans for enhancement, which are determined by longer-term strategic objectives.

The contents of the evaluation conversations between the ŠMSM and VET school directors are not available in the public domain, so it is difficult to scrutinise the extent to which there is consistency between school directors’ assessments and the underlying strategic objectives of the institutions. Standardising, publishing and having a responsible external assessor making these assessments, would aid in the efficacy, scrutiny and strategic alignment of assessment in the system.

A broader consideration should also be given as to the appropriate body to conduct the annual school director assessments. Currently the ŠMSM is extensively involved in all aspects of school performance, delivery and assessment. Not only does it set education policy, it also then evaluates performance against that policy. It is involved in the internal assessment of school performance in its seat on the school council, and in the external assessment of schools via the annual director assessment. Divesting the responsibility of the annual director assessments to KPMPC, such that the annual and periodic external assessment of schools is conducted by one external body could enhance the separation of responsibilities between institutions. KPMPC would control external assessment, the ŠMSM would set education policy and also perform an internal scrutiny function in its role as school owner (or joint owner).

External evaluations have a clear structure and independence is ensured via the use of external assessors but follow-up is limited

To plan the external evaluation process, the KPMPC is required in Chapter 3 of the order on external assessment (Republic of Lithuania, 2024[19]) to co-ordinate with the ŠMSM every year to establish the schedule of external evaluations for the following year and agree funding. The KPMPC will then schedule visits to institutions, including their duration. This includes both duration of the physical visits (2-3 days) and the duration of preparation for the visits (4-5 days), which may vary according to institutional size (see Table 4.5).

Number of formal vocational training programmes	Number of students in the Provider's institution	Number of teachers in the Provider's institution	Number of branches of the provider's institution	Number of experts in the group	Days of visit in an educational institution	Number of days allocated to prepare report
Until 10	Up to 100	Until 20	1	4	2	4
11- 25	101- 500	21- 60	2	4	3	5
26 and over	501 and above	61 and over	More than 2	5	3	5

Source: Adapted from LRV (2020[18]), Description of the procedure for external assessment of vocational training institutions, www.e-tar.lt/portal/lt/legalAct/7f6484806ea311eabee4a336e7e6fdab/asr (accessed 31 March 2025).

There is not a significant variation in the level of resources committed to evaluations depending on institutional size and complexity: an institution with 70 teachers (600 students) would only have one extra expert in the evaluation group than an institution with 21 teachers (101 students). This places practical limits on the extent to which reporting can go into significantly greater levels of detail for more complex institutions. A review of the efficacy and coverage of external assessments by institutional size and complexity might be required to determine whether the current rules and balances are appropriate. This is a lower priority task and could be completed once a sufficient number of external evaluation rounds have been completed.

The KPMPC is mandated to carry out the selection of external experts and ensure that these experts are adequately trained. It is also required to organise the evaluation of the performance of external evaluation experts every three years. Regulations stipulate that this evaluation should then be used to provide recommendations for improving the performance of the external expert and be used to plan their professional development. External evaluation expert groups are to be formed to analyse institutions. Usually the number of experts in a group will be four. However, for large institutions the group will be comprised of five experts. The KPMPC then determines the form of the external evaluation report of the institution‘s activities and the other documents necessary for the organisation and execution of the external evaluation activities.

The KPMPC appoints the head of the external evaluation expert group, who co‑ordinates the work of the external evaluation expert group, provides for the functions of the members of the external evaluation expert group, and is responsible for the results of the work of the entire external evaluation expert group. At least one member of the sectoral professional committee is included in the external evaluation expert group.

The form of the external assessment and the stipulation of the use of external experts to conduct the assessments provide a good platform for independent, impartial assessment to be conducted. However, the current implementation of these assessments, where KPMPC does not have much flexibility on contract terms for experts, means that practical limitations on the ability to hire appropriate experts may limit the practical organisation of these assessments, even if they look appropriate in theory. The lack of proper follow-up also limits the extent to which lessons are used to guide the development of VET institutions following the conduct of the external assessments.

The appointment of external experts may benefit from further separation from the quality agency managing the external assessments. External evaluation experts can be employees of the KPMPC, other experts, and members of sectoral professional committees. Members of sectoral professional committees and other experts are selected in accordance with the procedure established by the Law on Public Procurement of the Republic of Lithuania. External evaluation experts must submit to the KPMPC a completed declaration of compliance with the requirements of impeccable reputation and impartiality. Further separation of experts from the institution co‑ordinating the assessment (i.e. disallowing KPMPC employees to be experts), would aid independence and accountability of these assessments).

To become an external evaluation expert, a person must meet a number of must criteria, including having at least five years of pedagogical and/or managerial experience in a VET, research of study institution, or at least five years of relevant work experience. When conducting an external evaluation, the external evaluation experts should be guided by objectivity, respect, confidentiality and co‑operation. Experts who do not comply with these principles can be removed from the evaluation by KPMPC, and their contract as an external expert revoked.

The legal status of KPMPC precludes them from flexibility on offering higher contract fees to international experts. SKVC are able to offer international experts higher fees, to attract expertise from abroad. This limitation may constrain KPMPC‘s ability to hire external experts with the correct expertise to perform external assessments, limiting their ability to plan and conduct external assessments.

The KPMPC is required to provide follow-up after external evaluation to monitor and analyse provider activity to help improvements in a targeted manner. This includes advice and methodological assistance and training on performance and implementation of formal professional training programmes. The KPMPC is also expected to summarise the annual data of the external evaluations conducted, gathering information about the good practices of the institutions, and initiate dissemination of these good practices. However, stakeholders reported to the OECD team that in practice there is not yet a structured system in place to ensure evaluation follow-up happens.

External assessments are well-rounded, include self-assessment and cover a wide range of topics

The KPMPC must prepare and update methodological recommendations for instititutions on the preparation of self-assessment, advise on the preparation for external evaluation and in line with the principle of objectivity, inform the institution about the composition of the expert panel. The VET institution must then submit a self-assessment covering the last three calendar years of activity. This should take into account the school‘s internal quality management system and any recommendations that the KPMPC has provided to the institution on preparing for the assessment. If the insitution has had an external assessment within the previous five years, the report should also include an assessment of how the recommendations from that report have been implemented by the institution.

During the visit of the external evaluation expert group, meetings are organised with the institution‘s administration, members of the institution's performance self-analysis working group, teachers, students, graduates and social partners. Training activities (classes) may be observed during the visit if the evaluation group decides it necessary. A plan of monitored training activities (classes) is drawn up, before or during the visit, taking into account the need to better identify the aspects of the institution‘s activities that need to be improved. The institution must ensure suitable premises, technical and internet connection facilities for meetings and work. If requested, the institution provides the head of the expert group with clarifying information and additional operational documents necessary to substantiate the evaluations. Visits can be postponed or remotely conducted under extenuating circumstances by the government.

The areas that the external expert group investigate are determined with the executive order on external assessment and comprehensively encompass three broad topic areas. These areas are leadership and management, the process of teaching and learning and the outcomes from teaching and learning (see Table 4.6). The indicators which sit underneath this process are relatively well spread across different elements in the evaluation focus and there is a good emphasis on the labour market engagement of schools.

Evaluation area	Type of evidence		Focus					Labour market
Evaluation area	Quantitative	Qualitative	Aims	Input	Process	Output	Outcomes	Labour market
Leadership and management	0	5	2	1	2	1	0	2
Teaching and learning delivery	0	9	0	2	2	3	2	1
Teaching and learning outcomes	5	0	0	0	0	0	5	3
Total	5	14	2	3	4	4	7	6

Note: OECD analysis based on Lithuanian legislation.

Overall, there is a relative weighting on outcomes, which is a positive way to ensure that the evaluation focuses more on what the education achieve and less so on managing how these outcomes are achieved. The broader indicators on aims, input, process and outcomes still provide a solid foundation to review how institutions are managing to achieve these outcomes. The expert panels use these criteria to make their judgement.

For leadership and management, institutions are evaluated on their ability to make strategic decisions with the involvement of social partners, which impact the quality of their activities. This includes how the leadership involves the community, adapts to economic changes, and implements lifelong learning and digital transformation strategies. Involvement in local and national social activities, information dissemination, and budget management for effective use of resources are analysed to look at efficiency and outreach.The internal quality management system of the institution is reviewed, to ensure it is fit for purpose. Policies regarding employee selection, training, remuneration, and professional development, including their satisfaction with the work environment are also reviewed.

For teaching and learning, processes are analysed to scrutinise planning and execution, including support for virtual learning and informal training. The effectiveness of support provided to students and initiatives to attract more support are analysed. Initiatives to improve openness, develop competencies, and enhance the quality of the teaching and learning process are observed to look at how education is being enhanced. Assessment is made of the availability and modernity of material resources and their alignment with labour market needs to ensure that education is well equipped to meet needs. The inclusivity and adaptiveness of the teaching and learning environment is scrutinised to ensure that students of all abilities and needs are catered for is reviewed. All of this is tested via benchmarking satisfaction among students and employers with the teaching and learning process, especially concerning practical training.

For teaching and learning outcomes, there is a good concordance with the annual monitoring indicators conducted on VET providers. The external assessment indicators to a large extent mirror those already reviewed in the five annual monitoring indicators. They review both the number of graduates employed after six months, and the drop-out rate of students. The only innovation on these measures being that they are measured at the programme level as well as at the institutional level. However, no explicit threshold is given on the level for acceptance in these criteria, unlike the annual monitoring indicators. This is left to expert judgement. Employers and graduate satisfaction add an extra dimension to the assessment, but these are left to surveys conducted by the institutions themselves, which may suffer from variable quality and validity. This alignment creates a good level of consistency between the annual monitoring of providers and the periodic review of schools. This can help to create a consistent quality strategy and focus for schools as they manage their education quality.

At the end of the visit, the external evaluation expert group presents their findings and recommendations to the institution's community. A draft report is submitted to the KPMPC within 15 working days, reviewed for compliance, and shared with the institution for comments on factual errors within five days. The expert group finalises the report within another five days. The final report includes a 5-point rating for the institution's activities (Table 4.7) A positive evaluation requires no areas to be rated “unsatisfactory.” Recommendations for improvement are included, and the report is published on the NŠA’s website.

Grading	Description
Very good	Exceptional potential of the institution is visible, good experience/successful practice is disseminated at the regional or national level
Good	Activity is focused and effective
Average	Activity without significant deficiencies, consistent with established practice
Satisfactory	Activity meets the essential minimum requirements, there are deficiencies
Unsatisfactory	Activity does not meet the minimum requirements, there are significant deficiencies

Source: Republic of Lithuania (2020[18]), Description of the procedure for external assessment of vocational training institutions, www.e-tar.lt/portal/lt/legalAct/7f6484806ea311eabee4a336e7e6fdab/asr (accessed 31 March 2025).

If the evaluation is negative, the institution must submit an improvement plan within three months, co‑ordinated with the institution's owner (typically the ŠMSM for public VET providers). A one-day follow-up evaluation, conducted at least two years later, focuses on whether improvements have been implemented. If the follow-up evaluation is also negative, the NŠA informs the ŠMSM, which may cancel the institution’s license under the VET Act. Institutions can appeal regulatory violations through a court-based process.

Despite a clear framework for regular external assessment, practices need to be embedded and links to monitoring indicators improved

Although the legislation is clear that VET institutions should have an external assessment every five years, and that evaluation activities should be jointly planned between the ŠMSM and the KPMPC, there is not an established system of regular external evaluation, supported with dedicated funding. Currently, the only recent external assessment of schools has come as the result of an ESF-funded project, “Strengthening of quality assurance systems and processes of vocational training". This provided for the external evaluation of 12 schools in 2021, and 8 schools in each of 2022 and 2023, so that 28 out of 44 schools have been assessed. However, no further planning information is published on either the NŠA or KPMPC websites. To meet its commitment of a school assessment at least every five years, a minimum of 9 assessments per year is needed to serve the 44 public VET providers. Ensuring sustainability of financing for external assessment is crucial to ensure that regular assessments are conducted, interviews suggest that the limited number of evaluations to date reflects insufficient and unstable financial resources.

This lack of financing and planning feeds through into other areas. For example, the KPMPC management (and qualification verification) of its expert pool does not function as is laid down in legislation due to the lack of an embedded evaluation cycle. Similarly the links between the five annual monitoring indicators (see below) and the process of external assessment visits should be strengthened as it does not currently function as envisaged within the legislation. The annual monitoring indicators in 2022 indicated that 18 institutions breached three of the indicator thresholds, suggesting that at a minimum 18 external assessments should be undertaken in the following year (the exact number should be higher to account for the fact that some institutions would also be due their 5-yearly assessment). However, in 2023 only 8 external assessments were conducted on VET institutions, a long way short of what should be expected given the quality assurance and monitoring framework in place.

The relevance of monitoring indicators to assess VET performance and drive up provider performance could be improved

The revision to the VET Act in 2018 provided for the establishment of annual monitoring of VET providers. This gave the ŠMSM of Education, Science and Sport powers to define the indicators that would be used to monitor providers. Following the exercise performed by STRATA to analyse VET education and propose the monitoring indicators, five were established in government regulation in 2020 (Republic of Lithuania, 2020[18]). Those regulations also stipulate the criteria for intervention, including a threshold for each indicator, and the number of contraventions of minimum thresholds that warrants further quality assessments of providers.

According to the legislation, KPMPC should regularly monitor, analyse and evaluate the external evaluation indicators of VET providers. The indicator data are uploaded by institutions to the education management information system and are available to view in a report online (ŠVIS, 2024[12]). The NŠA manages the data collection of VET indicators via its responsibility for the national education register, and KPMPC has responsibility for analysis of the five monitoring indicators deriving from these data. However, there are currently insufficient resources within KPMPC to permit anything more than an oversight function with respect to the monitoring of these indicators.

The monitoring indicators cover various elements of VET students’ outcomes, looking at how institutions recruit and retain students, labour market links of students and how students then fare in exams and finding jobs afterwards (see Table 4.8). Despite the indicators seeming to offer a solid framework for reviewing and benchmarking quality of VET institutions, a number of problems remain in their interpretation and their use in accurately appraising institutional performance. The scope, aggregation and thresholds of these indicators would benefit from a thorough appraisal to critically appraise how useful they are in genuinely holding schools to account for their performance.

Indicator	Description	Breach of threshold
State-funded places filled	The number of students admitted to the 1st year of study divided by the number of state allocated places	<80%
Proportion of apprenticeships	Number of students with an apprenticeship contract for at least 1 module or 2 months in year divided by the number of students who obtained a qualification in year	<5%
Drop-out rates	Number of students admitted in year minus the number of students obtaining qualification, divided by the number of students admitted	>25%
High-quality exam results	Proportion of evaluated students whose assessment of acquired competencies is "good" (8 points) or "very good" (9 points) or "excellent" (10 points)	<25%
Graduate employment	Percentage of graduates employed 6 months after the graduation date	<65%

Note: All indicators are sourced from the Education Management Information System.

Source: Adapted from Republic of Lithuania (2020[18]) Description of the procedure for external assessment of vocational training institutions, www.e-tar.lt/portal/lt/legalAct/7f6484806ea311eabee4a336e7e6fdab/asr (accessed 31 March 2025).

The lower threshold for filling state-funded places is 80%. No school with data for this indicator fell below this threshold in 2023 and almost 80% (38 out of 49) had values above 100%. Given the number of state-funded places has remained static over time, is determined by looking at past application data and goes through several iterations to re-allocate unfilled spaces, it is unclear what value this indicator currently brings to scrutinising school performance.

On the contrary, the threshold for the number of dropouts is high, allowing one quarter of students to stop studying before transgressing the threshold. Despite this seeming leniency, over 70% of schools (39 out of 55) with data fail to meet this threshold and the median national drop-out rate is 38%. Allowing one quarter of students to drop-out before raising a concern, with a large majority of schools not even meeting this threshold, raises questions as to what precisely this metric is measuring. This includes how dropouts are defined. For example, students who receive a secondary-level Matura certificate, but then drop-out of the final year of VET training are classified as dropouts.

Similarly, the indicator for attaining a good grade (8 points or higher) allows only 25% of students to achieve this mark before a breach is realised. Only three schools breach this threshold, all with values of 0.0% suggesting data issues. The median value is 82% and the school in the 10th centile has 55% of students achieving 8 points or above. This indicator therefore does not seem to offer the appropriate level or disaggregation of performance across institutions to provide a lot of value in ranking relative performance of institutions.

The indicator on graduate employment rates after six months has values with a better mix (i.e. more variation) among schools and clustering closer to the target and threshold values, however even here questions can be raised. For example, if a student emigrates they would be counted as “not working” and would count against a school’s tally. Neither do schools fully influence employment rates. Those schools in regions where employments rates are lower than the national average may find it harder to reach this target than those schools in areas with higher employment rates, even if their educational programmes were better than their competitors.

Compliance with regulations on interventions for poorly performing institutions and use of quantitative evidence needs improvement

The regulations on the annual monitoring of VET providers also stipulate that in cases where schools do not meet at least three minimum standards across the five indicators, there should be an external assessment organised within the next twelve months. In practice, institutions that are failing to meet criteria are appraised by the ŠMSM, who decides what further intervention might be needed. An automatic external assessment is not routine. The regulation that stipulates that schools should automatically receive an external assessment seems not to be implemented in practice. Ensuring that the monitoring indicators are suitably adapted, properly monitored and judiciously acted upon will improve the ability of element of quality assurance to function as it was intended, as a means to more risk-based quality interventions in institutions.

Further improvements in VET quality assessment might also be made by utilising data on centralised student assessment (see Chapter 6). Currently these data are not shared in such a way that allows formalised comparison and assessment of institutions possible for students and stakeholders in VET alike. Data are summarised in KPMPC annual reports (KPMPC, 2022[22]) which show the possibility of utilising such data, but they are not embedded in any other formal monitoring process, akin to what happens with the five annual monitoring indicators. Making these data available in an easily digestible format may inform better decision-making on the relative performance of VET providers. Efforts in recent years have established annual reports to improve VET quality, and embedding these further into evaluation and accreditation processes to increase the objectivity and comparability of reports may pay further dividends. As part of an EU-financed initiative, the Government Strategic Analysis Centre (Strata) developed the annual monitoring indicators for VET and supplemented these with annual reports summarising VET education in 2019 (Strata, 2020[23]) and 2020 (Strata, 2021[24]).

There is no established procedure for assuring the quality of work-based learning offered by employers in VET

The quality assurance of work-based learning is also ill-defined. As a result, it is challenging to form a clear picture of the quality of such learning across the VET system. In the EU, the adoption of a Council Recommendation on the “European Quality Framework for Effective Apprenticeships” (EQFEA) in 2018 established 14 criteria to ensure the quality of apprenticeships. In 2021, the European Commission took stock of the implementation of the Council Recommendation across all EU member states and found that, in Lithuania, six of the principles were already fully in place, five were largely in place, and three somewhat in place (European Commission, 2021[25]). For criterion 13 (Quality assurance and graduate tracking), the report found that a quality assurance system for apprenticeships was “still in a development stage and the quality assurance schemes are mainly directed to VET providers, not employers” (European Commission, 2021, p. 66[25]). Embedding a thorough system of assessment to monitor across these criteria will be important to ensure ongoing quality in VET work-based learning in Lithuania.

The regulatory accountability of KPMPC is ill-defined and responsibilities are diffuse, which hinders the development of a core purpose for the organisation

The legal framework that the KPMPC is incorporated under limits its efficient functioning as the quality body for VET. The KPMPC’s incorporation as an educational support institution contrasts to the SKVC’s incorporation as an official public legal body (Republic of Lithuania, 2023[26]; LRV, 2016[27]). This difference means that KPMPC does not have the authorisation to register new VET providers, even though it conducts the work to evaluate the accreditation of these providers. The SKVC is required to formally register new VET providers, due to the legal powers conferred to them. This creates an unnecessary bureaucratic process that exists only due to an improper allocation of legal powers. This distinction is arguably of more importance in other areas. For example, in the area of employing external experts for evaluation of institutions, the SKVC’s legal powers mean they have secured an exemption which allows them to contract more highly paid foreign experts. The KPMPC do not have a reciprocal possibility, which makes the employment of foreign experts more difficult and limits them to a domestic market. Ensuring that institutions have the appropriate legal powers to facilitate their work will improve efficiency and effectiveness of operations.

Regulations for the KPMPC also lay out a diffuse and extensive number of organisational objectives which makes it more difficult for the KPMPC to focus scarce resources and prioritise tasks (see Table 4.9). KPMPC’s purposes, tasks and functions are laid out in an executive order of the Minister of Education, Science and Sports (Republic of Lithuania, 2023[26]). It is tasked with a broad range of responsibilities and both enhancement and accountability activities are concentrated in the same agency. Responsibilities for methodological commissions (with tasks related to both exam preparation and teaching development) and national and international project implementation cover both compliance and enhancement. This large array of responsibilities, combined with its limited number of core KPMPC staff, places limitations on the extent to which all tasks can be fully implemented. The split between compliance and enhancement activities also places tensions between the KPMPC’s role as a regulation-setting institution, policing standards and its role as an advocate for improving standards and encouraging innovation in education delivery.

Accountability	Enhancement
Organises the preparation and updating of professional standards;	Conducts studies on the need for qualifications
Qualification system formation	Develops the adult and continuing adult education system and implements measures to strengthen general competences
Preparation and updating, evaluation and registration of VET programmes	Professional development of teachers and andragogues;
Compliance accreditation assessment of VET providers	Collects and analyses data on VET and adult education, carries out its dissemination, popularises vocational training and lifelong learning
Consulting assistance on the external evaluation of VET providers	Co-ordinates the organisation of international and national level professional excellence competitions;
Exam centres accreditation assessment	Participates in adult professional guidance activities
Formal assessment of VET students and provision of statistics on performance	National Reference Point for VET, the National Qualifications Coordination Point (National Coordination Point) and the ReferNet co-ordinator (CEDEFOP), information and knowledge network in Lithuania, participating in the relevant in network activity
Methodologies for shaping the content of professional training and adult education
Determines composition and work streams of sectoral professional committees and organises their activities
Drafting preparation and assistance of VET laws
Joint accountability and enhancement activities
	Prepares and implements national and international projects
	Co-ordinates the activities of methodological commissions

Source: Adapted from Republic of Lithuania (2023[26]), Įsakymas Dėl Kvalifikacijų Ir Profesinio Mokymo Plėtros Centro Nuostatų Patvirtinimo [Order on The Approval of The Provisions of The Centre for The Development of Qualifications and Professional Training], https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/5ed291728c6f11edb55e9d42c1579bdf?jfwid=rivwzvpvg (accessed 31 March 2025).

4.2. Proposed roadmap for Lithuania to streamline the external quality assurance system in VET and make better use of data to support programme development

Copy link to 4.2. Proposed roadmap for Lithuania to streamline the external quality assurance system in VET and make better use of data to support programme development

This section offers a proposed roadmap for Lithuania to address the most important challenges identified in Section 4.1 above. The recommendations and associated roadmap were developed based on a review of international policies for quality assurance and enhancement across nine comparator jurisdictions for Lithuania in OECD (2025[28]) and OECD (2025[29]).

4.2.1. Amend regulation to strengthen VET’s links to the labour market

A number of small changes to the regulatory framework for VET can help it to adapt to constant labour market evolution, ensuring that students are equipped with the skills necessary to thrive in work. Ensuring that VET programmes adapt to economic changes and offer students the opportunity to engage with employers as they learn will help to strengthen VET’s labour market bond. This can be supported by giving the KPMPC a sufficient legal basis to perform it duties efficiently and effectively.

Recommendation 7: Incorporate routine data analysis on skills and labour market developments to update professional standards

Effective skills anticipation and assessment is essential for reviewing and renewing VET programmes and ensuring alignment of education with future labour market needs. This process involves quantitative methodologies such as skills surveys, forecasting models, and scenario development. Across the nine comparator systems examined for Lithuania, the OECD has found that several countries make use of such data to inform programme development in VET (OECD, 2025[29]). For example, the Estonian Qualifications Authority maps labour and skills needs using data from registries, statistics, and expert input, examining around five sectors annually with comprehensive reviews every few years. This system is supplemented by expert monitoring and thematic studies to adapt VET provision to emerging trends (Kutsekoda, n.d.[30]). Sweden uses a system of regional analysis that documents demand and supply for graduates across its different higher vocational programmes (MYH, n.d.[31]). These annual reports integrate survey information that regions provide on the demand for skills across different educational specialisms. As higher VET programmes only have time limited budgetary approval in Sweden (before their demand needs to be re-confirmed), these analyses provide rationale for the re-approval of programmes. The time limitation ensures that when programmes are renewed, they are assessed against currently employer demands and industry standards.

These examples highlight the importance of bringing key skills insights to bear on educational planning, and that there is a multitude of methods by which to incorporate them. Lithuania already has provisions for its sectoral professional committees to co‑ordinate strategic issues, and each committee’s membership includes experts from relevant fields. This provides an ideal structure in which to easily embed and review skills intelligence in each of the fields. Like Sweden, the professional committees can be tasked with the production of an annual report on skills demands and labour market developments for their sector. Annual reports make more sense for Lithuania, rather than less frequent analyses, due to its existing policy making environment. These annual reports can be used as a tool to provide input into the annual discussion by the ŠMSM and the social partners on the provision of government-funded VET student places and the relative number allocated to each of the different sectors. They can also help to prioritise sectoral development for the next year.

As the sectoral professional committees have limited capacity and voluntary membership it is imperative to provide their members with as much background information on labour market needs in their sector as possible, to facilitate efficient use of their scarce resources. This will aid committees to make decisions needed to ensure sectoral best practices, skills demands and professional needs are fed into education design. Increasing the resources devoted to production of human resource forecasts by STRATA, to enable the provision of sector specific reports for each of the sectoral professional committees, will ensure that analysis is disaggregated enough to be useful at a committee level.

To facilitate better integration of labour market needs, the introduction of a short annual employer survey with sufficient sample coverage for each of the sectoral professional committee areas could also help to provide qualitative evidence. For example, both Australia (NCVER, 2024[32]) and Bulgaria (Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, 2024[33]) implement annual or bi-annual surveys of employers, using samples based on their business registers. Bulgaria uses an online survey, asking employers about their demands over the next 12 months, and for the next three to five years. The survey is stratified by sector and district, to ensure sectoral and geographical coverages.

The Lithuanian public employment service (PES) already conducts an annual employer survey that covers a suite of business issues that employers face and establishes business sentiment across industries (UZT, n.d.[34]). While this survey does not currently precisely contain the information that may be required by the sectoral professional committees, it does offer the possibility of a baseline upon which to build. Information from a new or enhanced survey can supplement and contextualise the quantitative skills forecast conducted by STRATA.

To further democratise the evidence generation process and to lower the cost of “bottom up” initiatives to reform and improve education, an online portal should also be established to facilitate suggestions and improvements from stakeholders (such as students, teachers and members of the business committee) on areas for development in programmes (both to existing programmes or on the potential for new programmes). For example, the quality agency Myndigheten för yrkeshögskolans (MYH) for higher VET in Sweden operates a portal for individuals to make complaints about any of the higher VET programmes in Sweden (MYH, 2024[35]). A more inclusive portal, that encourages positive suggestions, alongside complaints, will open up a mechanism for continuous feedback and areas for suggestion, that can be monitored by KPMPC, in contrast to any annual survey which may ask a subset of targeted questions on skills needed.

Roadmap to implement Recommendation 7

Copy link to Roadmap to implement Recommendation 7

To implement Recommendation 7, Lithuania is recommended to focus on the following action points:

Action Point 1: Establish a working group with representatives from each of the sectoral professional committees to define the needs for annual skills analysis. Explore Strata’s institutional capacity and potential, or consider other options, to address the skills analysis needs identified by the sectoral professional committees.
Action Point 2: Revise law V-610/4-401 to provide the sectoral professional committees with an annual task to assess the education in its sector and produce a report with its assessment.
Action Point 3: Introduce a short (bi-) annual employer survey, using stratified sampling to ensure sufficient responses across each of the sectoral professional committees areas to provide qualitative evidence. Consider whether this may be able to be conducted as part of a supplement to the existing employer surveys undertaken by the PES.
Action Point 4: Establish an online portal to facilitate suggestions and improvements from stakeholders (such as students, teachers and members of the business committee).

Recommendation 8: Re-define work-based learning content in VET programmes, increase the apprenticeship reporting quality and introduce placement quality monitoring

Lithuania should adopt a structured and sequential process to build and nurture quality for it work-based learning. This will first require the ŠMSM to align the definition of apprenticeships in the Law on VET with established international norms, which will first help to define and standardise their provision, and facilitate greater understanding and consensus on the core offer of an apprenticeship. The workplace component criteria of the European Framework for Quality and Effective Apprenticeships stipulates that at least half of an apprenticeship should be work-based (EC, 2024[36]). To align with established international best practice, Lithuania should make changes to the necessary legislation to ensure that at least half of the entire apprenticeship programme learning must take place at the employer.

In many countries, companies are involved in the design and delivery of VET programmes, especially through WBL. For example, in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, students in apprenticeship programmes spend between 60 and 80% of their time learning in the workplace (OECD, 2023[37]). In systems with VET programmes that have a large WBL component, governments tend to play a stronger role in assuring that the training delivered by companies and in-company trainers is of sufficient quality, in some cases requiring them to apply for accreditation before they are allowed to offer WBL to VET students or take on apprentices. Such evaluations typically examine the suitability of the infrastructure and facilities of the company, the qualifications of in-company trainers, minimum teacher-to-apprentice ratios, and alignment with professional or occupational standards (OECD, 2023[37]). In seven of the nine comparator systems analysed for Lithuania, companies need to be accredited before they can take on VET students (i.e. in Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Scotland (UK)).

A second area of action for Lithuania related to work-based learning will be to define clear quality standards on what a good quality apprenticeship or work-based learning looks like. In countries with a strong work-based VET sector, dedicated structures for the QA of work-based learning have been established (Musset, 2019[38]; OECD, 2023[39]). For example, in Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (UK), specific organisations carry out initial accreditation and periodic reviews of company WBL. Some QA agencies have also developed specific guidance to support the quality enhancement of WBL. For example, Quality and Qualifications Ireland’s (QQI) sets out requirements for structured, quality on-the-job training (QQI, 2016[40]). Its advice incorporates how employers should designate trained mentors, comply with regulatory standards, collaborate with co‑ordinating providers, and ensure apprentices receive the necessary skills and support to achieve programme learning outcomes.

Taking inspiration from Ireland, building a basis to formulate expectations on what a good apprenticeship looks like will help to drive up standards. Expanding on the expectations set out in the procedural description of apprenticeships, to build in a quality framework based around the European framework for quality and effective apprenticeships (EFQEA) will provide greater clarity for employers and apprentices. Expanding upon these criteria and providing them in an easy to digest format for employers and apprentices (for example on the Pameistryste website), as is done by the QQI in Ireland, can help to disseminate guidance and establish a common understanding of the benefits and requirements for potential students and employers alike.

Given the current state of apprenticeship delivery in Lithuania, it is not suggested to move immediately towards a system of full employer accreditation, but increasing the QA of placements and ensuring the accuracy of data provided by the VET institutions themselves can support quality. In the first instance, giving KPMPC resources and a mandate to perform inspections of work placements will help to identify issues and support system development, both in individual placements and in system level guidance for employers. This could be done separately, or part of the regular external assessments of VET providers.

Inspections as part of the regular external assessments will lower the burden for providers, employers and the KPMPC. To review quality of data on placements, it is advised to check a sample of institutions annually, rather than carrying out a census. This will lower administrative burden, while still providing information on the extent of accurate reporting by schools, allowing further development of reporting guidelines and providing incentives for institutions to accurately report data. For example, the Foundation for Co-operation on Vocational Education, Training and the Labour Market (SBB) in the Netherlands requires its approved placement companies to apply for re-accreditation every four years and checks compliance across five topics offering students: a safe workplace; a good learning environment with real work tasks; a supervisor who understanding the training and devotes adequate time and resources to the students; and a willingness to co-operate with the VET school and the SBB and furnishing them with adequate information; an agreement to advertise placements on apprenticeship and internship websites (SBB, n.d.[41]).

Roadmap to implement Recommendation 8

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To implement Recommendation 8, Lithuania is recommended focus on the following action points:

Action Point 1: To align its definition with established international norms and EU recommendations, Lithuania should review and amend necessary legislation on apprenticeship to add the condition that a minimum of 50% of an entire programme should be work-based.
Action Point 2: Lithuania should develop a quality framework for apprenticeship, based around the EFQEA framework and drawing on international examples. This framework and the indicators within it can then be linked to the system of placement quality inspections, to ensure that quality is measured relative to expectations.
Action Point 3: Audits should be introduced on data for apprenticeships, to provide quality checks on the data provided by VET institutions.
Action Point 4: Strengthen employer QA processes. As part of the regular external assessments of institutions, sample a selection of employer placements to review at the same time.

Recommendation 9: Incorporate the KPMPC as an official public legal body to increase its VET licensing and external expert contracting powers

Transparent and independent assurance agencies are essential for the effective functioning of QA systems in both VET and higher education. Independence is critical for QA agencies to effectively deliver on their mandates without external pressure or conflicts of interest. It allows them to make impartial assessments and uphold rigorous standards, ensuring that evaluations and recommendations are based solely on objective criteria. This independence supports QA agencies in their role as guardians of quality, enabling them to address issues, enforce standards, and advocate for improvements without interference. Without independence, agencies risk compromised decision-making, which can undermine trust and the reliability of their assessments (OECD, 2025[28]).

Legal powers also play a critical role in the hiring of experts for external evaluation. The SKVC’s legal powers mean they have secured an exemption which allows them to contract more highly paid foreign experts. The KPMPC do not have a reciprocal possibility, which makes the employment of external experts more difficult and limits them to a domestic market. Ensuring that institutions have the appropriate legal powers to facilitate their work will improve efficiency and effectiveness of operations.

There are two options for changes to the incorporation of the KPMPC. The first is to incorporate KPMPC as an independent state public legal entity. This would preserve its functioning as it is now but allow it to approve the licensing of VET providers and give greater flexibility in hiring external evaluation experts. The second option would be to bring the KPMPC’s function within the SKVC, but for reasons discussed below this is not recommended.

Roadmap to implement Recommendation 9

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To implement Recommendation 9, Lithuania is recommended focus on the following action point:

Action Point 1: The ŠMSM should create a government order to create the KPMPC as an official public legal body.

4.2.2. Review external VET quality processes to increase labour market focus, efficiency and cohesiveness, and to continually drive up quality

A first step to support VET quality is to ensure that new programmes and providers respond to labour market needs. Once this has been ensured, ongoing external QA processes can be amended to ensure they work in unison with each other and VET implementation retains its quality and connection to the labour market. Then, recent advances by Lithuania to implement a system of risk-based monitoring for VET institutions can be strengthened further by revising the suite of indicators it currently monitors to better focus performance management.

Recommendation 10: Introduce better labour market and student demand checks to license applications and consider granting greater autonomy to well-performing VET providers

It is important for Lithuania to keep a strong system for assessing the labour market relevance and student demand for new VET programmes. KPMPC currently does not check this at all in its licensing procedure. Such checks typically form a bigger part in the ex-ante evaluation and licensing procedures for new programmes in other OECD and EU jurisdictions. For example, in Austria employers often formulate new proposals and the Federal Vocational Training Advisory Board (B-BAB) – comprising social partners – then evaluates demand, potential training companies and school locations, and clarifies the apprenticeship structure. It then recommends experts to the Federal ŠMSM of Labour and Economy for final evaluation of the programme (BMAW, 2022[42]). In Sweden higher VET programmes are only given time limited approval and labour market demand has to be established by VET providers prior to the re-approval of programme places (Sveriges Riksdag, 2009[43]). Assessing the labour market demand for new programme proposals in its licensing decisions will provide Lithuanian authorities a better handle on its regional and sectoral skills needs.

As discussed in more detail under Recommendation 10, an increasing number of OECD and EU systems has started to grand self-accreditation rights to well-performing HEIs (OECD, 2025[28]). In the VET sector, this is less common because – like general education – governments want to maintain slightly more control on the content and delivery methods of study programmes by providers. Especially for programmes that prepare for highly specialised professions or sectors. One exception identified in the OECD team’s international review was found in Australia, where the pilot for Technical and Further Education (TAFE) providers illustrates a move toward granting self-accrediting rights to select VET institutions in strategic fields like digitalisation and care (Australian Department of Education, 2024[44]). This approach can improve VET’s adaptability to national priorities while ensuring parity with higher education.

A tiered system can balance innovation with rigorous oversight, promoting quality and alignment with economic needs while allowing trusted institutions greater flexibility. Drawing on the higher education models presented in Recommendation 10, the OECD team believes that there is scope for introducing a limited form of self-accreditation for well-performing formal VET providers in Lithuania to help make the current programme licensing progress by KPMPC less burdensome.

Unlike in higher education, government-funded VET programmes are tightly controlled. VET programmes can only be designed and approved via KPMPC co‑ordination and management This means there is no risk from institutions offering programmes poorly adapted to the needs of students or the labour market. Similarly, the internal risk management processes governed via institutional councils largely replicate (and extend) the basic checks on resources and premises that are conducted in current application processes.

For public institutions providing formal VET – owned or co-owned by the ŠMSM – the existing oversight via institution councils and annual director assessments, as well as the future quality assessments by the KPMPC of VET providers offer some flexibility to reduce licensing requirements for these providers, especially regarding the conditions on adequate equipment and staff. For institutions that are performing well (and have not been subject to poor external quality assessment, or are not currently breaching monitoring indicators), it is suggested to relax licensing conditions for new programme implementation. For those public institutions with quality concerns, the licensing conditions should remain as they are now.

For private institutions providing non-formal VET, given the limited oversight that they are currently given, it is advised that licensing conditions should remain in place. To avoid unnecessary bureaucratic burden on the KPMPC, an application fee could be considered, which would compensate KPMPC for its administrative work and discourage speculative applications. Combined with the requirement to establish labour market demand, this may limit spurious and/or repeat applications from providers.

Roadmap to implement Recommendation 10

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To implement Recommendation 10, Lithuania is recommended to focus on the following action points:

Action Point 1: Consider the re-introduction of labour market demand questions on new VET licenses to provide re-assurance that new programmes being offer meet established labour market needs.
Action Point 2: Reduce the burden on licensing for public institutions providing formal VET programmes by relaxing certain conditions for all new programmes, or only those in existing subject areas offered by the institution. The review should be risk-based, such that poorly performing institutions are not given the same rights. Legislation should be amended to ensure that for existing providers, provision is made so that institutional councils are given responsibility for establishing whether the institution meets the conditions for offering the programmes.
Action Point 3: For private providers of non-formal VET programmes, consider the introduction of an application fee for new programme licensing applications.

Recommendation 11: Introduce a six-year institutional evaluation cycle, including follow-up and director assessments linked with institutions’ strategic plans

In Lithuania, the lack of sustainable funding to support ongoing external quality assessments, and ancillary enhancement activities, constrains its ability to nurture VET quality in a continuous and responsive manner. A first key action for Lithuania to take is to set a clear, multi-year budget to plan and manage the implementation of its external assessment of all VET providers. These multi-year budgets can be set in the three-year government planning cycle, to dovetail with the new six-year assessment timeframe proposed. Such multi-year budgets and plans are well-established in other OECD and EU jurisdictions. For example, in Ontario (Canada) and Ireland, the QA agencies publish plans for forthcoming evaluation schedules. In its newly revised evaluation schedule, Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) has published its plan on the schedule of quality reviews with each of its 16 Education and Training Boards (ETB), who co‑ordinate and run VET programmes in Ireland (QQI, 2021[45]). This document includes intended dates for the self-assessment report, planning visits, main review visits and the timeline for the production of the review report and feedback from the ETBs. Similarly in Ontario, the Ontario College Quality Assurance Service publishes a plan of its completed and planned institutional audits to offer college stakeholders clarity about its forthcoming audit schedule. The current report runs from 2016 to 2026 (OCQAS, 2024[46]).

To ensure continuous improvement and adherence to quality standards, QA agencies in the nine comparator jurisdictions analysed for Lithuania also have a structured follow-up programme in place for institutions. Often, this involves VET providers being required to submit an action plan in which they explain how they will implement the recommendations from external evaluation (OECD, 2025[28]). For example, in Ireland, VET providers engage in annual quality dialogues with Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) and submit comprehensive quality reports detailing updates and improvements to their QA systems (QQI, 2024[47]). In New Zealand, risk profiles created for each institution based on the result of their external evaluation guide the application of sanctions, incentives and institutional follow-up by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA). To assist struggling providers, a peer-support approach leverages providers in the top two categories to support both in the bottom two in student assessment and moderation (NZQA, 2024[48]).

Building on these examples, Lithuania should ensure follow-up forms an integral part of its external QA framework. This can include reporting, as well as an annual quality dialogue between KPMPC and VET providers, and a programme of enhancement activities. It is also proposed that the action plans developed by institutions as part of this process are clearly linked to VET providers’ strategic plans and annual performance reviews with the ŠMSM. This will help to install quality as part of the culture of institutional improvement and ensure that both systems (the KPMPC’s institutional follow-up and the annual meetings with the ŠMSM) function in a mutually reinforcing and consistent way. Lithuania may consider adapting the length of institutions’ strategic plans to three years to allow VET providers to synchronise every second strategic plan with the timing of the KPMPC’s external evaluation.

Revising legislation such that annual tasks are directly determined from strategic plans may help institutions to put in place more coherent and consistent plans for enhancement, which are determined by longer-term strategic objectives. Despite the multi-year strategic plans forming the backbone of an infrastructure of enhancement in schools, the way in which they are reviewed and enforced – through annual performance reports and assessments – might limit schools’ ability to plan and prepare enhancement activities. As noted, the freedom for the ŠMSM to set the three to five annual tasks for Directors, independent of the objectives within the strategic plans of schools, can lead to fragmentation and mis-alignment between internal and external QA processes.

Roadmap to implement Recommendation 11

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To implement Recommendation 11, Lithuania is recommended to focus on the following action points:

Action Point 1: The ŠMSM should amend Article 22 of the Law on VET to extend the external evaluation timeframe from every five years to six years. Currently, the ŠMSM functions on a central government three-year budgetary planning cycle, so the amendment permit a good concordance with this cycle. Since there are 44 public VET providers in Lithuania, this would require KPMPC to co-ordinate the external evaluation of roughly seven institutions each year.
Action Point 2: The ŠMSM should revise Chapter VI of the Order on the external quality assurance procedures for VET, including a provision for institutional follow-up and reporting following external assessment by the KPMPC.
Action Point 3: KPMPC should plan and implement a six-year institutional evaluation cycle, with financial support from the ŠMSM, and a structured approach for institutional follow-up and support to aid the implementation of evaluation recommendations by VET providers.
Action Point 4: Include a clause for VET providers in the order on evaluation for heads of educational institutions, to link expected annual director tasks only to the agreed tasks in the institution’s strategic plans.

Recommendation 12: Conduct further analysis and invest in data to revise monitoring indicators and their thresholds

The monitoring of VET providers’ performance against five key indicators provides a solid basis for the development of a fully-fledged risk-based quality system in Lithuania. A risk-based and quantitative approach to assuring the quality of teaching and learning is perhaps one of the biggest innovations in quality assurance (OECD, 2025[28]). The underlying principle is that quality risks vary across the sector, and focussing QA resources on high-risk areas ensures efficient use of resources and better protection of student interests. Lithuania is at the forefront of these efforts in its introduction of risk-based profiling, but it can also learn from others about how to adapt and improve these processes.

Countries have adopted different models of risk-based QA, with various indicators used to assess provider risk levels. Denmark has implemented a targeted risk-based inspection system for VET providers. The Danish Agency for Education and Quality (STUK) conducts annual risk assessments based on legally defined performance indicators, such as student retention, drop-out rates, absenteeism, and student satisfaction. This method prioritises institutions with persistent quality challenges, ensuring targeted interventions and alignment with national VET reform goals (UVM, 2024[49]). STUK’s approach is dynamic, incorporating thematic reviews to address broader issues like admission processes and sustainability. The Netherlands uses a partially automated system for its annual risk analysis, covering all education and training levels except higher education. The Dutch Inspectorate of Education assesses VET providers using data from four main sources: institutional reports, central administrative data, student satisfaction surveys, and external signals (e.g. social media). Indicators include educational outcomes, financial stability, resource management, student population trends, and safety. If risks are flagged, an in-depth review by a team of specialists may lead to targeted inspections (Inspectorate for Education, 2024[50]).

The international examples provide inspiration for how Lithuanian can better develop its suite of indicators. Both Denmark and the Netherlands include measures of student satisfaction. This is an important barometer, as the students are the ultimate recipients of education. Knowing their views on the perceived quality of teaching and learning is a helpful metric to inform development. Similarly, metrics on similar areas can help to provide greater depth to analysis. Denmark’s inclusion of absenteeism offers an additional metric to help contextualise drop-out rates. Similarly including metrics on staffing inputs, such as staff-student ratios, staff sickness levels and staff satisfaction can help to provide a picture of staffing inputs into education.

Once the indicators have been revised, changes should be made to their use in gauging quality. Here New Zealand provides inspiration. New Zealand uses four categories to determine the performance of providers. These are formed from assessing across two dimensions on educational quality and self-assessment ability. These four categories allow them to distinguish high performers from low performers (NZQA, 2024[48]). Higher performers are given incentives- like having new programme applications prioritised, and having to submit fewer self-assessments. Low performers are given sanctions, like having more frequent assessments and having their student work moderated.

If Lithuania can develop their indicators to provide quality and informed risk profiles, then they can link these to external assessments. For instance, they could provide better performers more freedom on the scope of their external assessments- for example the freedom to ask assessors to provide detailed enhancement related feedback in specific areas. For poor performers, more regular assessments could be scheduled- either full assessments, or focussing on the problematic areas identified.

Roadmap to implement Recommendation 12

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To implement Recommendation 12, Lithuania is recommended to focus on the following action points:

Action Point 1: Re-visit the current thresholds for monitoring indicators so that they are based on levels observed in historic data. Ensure that thresholds are chosen such that they properly demarcate good and bad performance.
Action Point 2: Commission a programme of work to more broadly evaluate the suite of indicators included in the monitoring, to critique content and suggest revisions.
Action Point 3: Subsequent to the analysis on the content of the indicators, undertake data improvements to incorporate missing data (migration, earnings, student/staff surveys).
Action Point 4: Develop a more nuanced set of risk profiles for institutions that permit better performing institutions more autonomy (e.g. lighter accreditation procedures) and ensure that the monitoring indicators are linked to and aligned with the system for external assessments.

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[6] Republic of Lithuania (2019), Nutarimas Dėl Profesinių Standartų Rengimo, Atnaujinimo Ir Tvirtinimo Tvarkos Aprašo Patvirtinimo (Resolution On The Description Of The Procedure For The Preparation, Update And Approval Of Professional Standards Confirmation, Lietuvos Respublikos Vyriausybė, https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/7d1b86206fcf11e99ceae2890faa4193?jfwid=saqd0kz19.

[16] Republic of Lithuania (2018), Dėl Profesinio Mokymo Programų Rengimo Ir Registravimo Tvarkos Aprašo Patvirtinimo (Approval of Procedure for development and registration of VET programmes), Lietuvos Respublikos švietimo ir mokslo ministerija, https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/f32c88c2ee9511e89d4ad92e8434e309/asr.

[2] Republic of Lithuania (2018), Dėl Profesinio Mokymo Programų Rengimo Ir Registravimo Tvarkos Aprašo Patvirtinimo (Approval Of Procedure For Development And Registration Of Vocational Training Programs), https://e-seimas.lrs.lt/portal/legalAct/lt/TAD/f32c88c2ee9511e89d4ad92e8434e309 (accessed on 31 March 2025).

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[15] Republic of Lithuania (2007), Įsakymas Dėl Ekonominės Veiklos Rūšių Klasifikatoriaus Patvirtinimo (Order Concerning The Approval Of The Classifier Of The Types Of Economic Activity), General Director of the Department of Statistics Under the Government of the Republic of Lithuania, https://www.e-tar.lt/portal/lt/legalAct/TAR.54CEC8F63B97.

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Notes

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← 1. For programmes that do not attract government funding, such as non-formal VET programmes offered to private individuals, there are fewer specific regulations that a provider must adhere to, and providers can design programmes to attract students as they wish. The only exception to this is that non-formal programmes must be 30 credit points or less in length (around six months of full-time study) and adhere to relevant professional standards.

← 2. In the case of other VET providers delivering non-formal VET (private providers delivering short courses), there are no set procedures for external assessment. It falls under KPMPC‘s responsibility, under the auspices of sectoral professional committees.

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