Prague, 1998

Vaiva was, in a sense, Lithuania's ambassador to the worldwide education bureaucracy, a role to which she brought tremendous talent and skill. Below is an address from early in her tenure as Vice Minister.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues, Madame Cresson, Baroness Blackstone, Mr Sokol,

I am pleased to have the opportunity to share some thoughts among colleagues. The issues raised today are important for a successful follow-up to Lithuania's educational reform, and also to everyone convened here. As has been frequently declared, efforts are underway to build a unanimous and progressive Europe providing equal opportunities to its citizens. In the past few years, these declarations have become a priority task in Lithuania - especially following our country's EU Associate Membership effected on the 1st of February this year.

The reform begun in 1991 in Lithuania, has required preparation of the main legal acts necessary for statutory regulation of education. Although the Lithuanian system of education is still a rather centralised one, some of the administrative functions have already been delegated to local government. Together with administrative decentralisation, restructuring of educational finance has begun.

In the first phase of reform, educational objectives and content were addressed. The General Concept of Education in Lithuania identified certain values: not only the process and result of teaching, but also the process of learning, including lifelong learning. Therefore it is with immense interest that I have listened to Prof. ' and Prof. ' reports devoted to the issue of improving school standards. This issue is very topical and is now being addressed within schools, at regional seminars, as well as at international conferences held in Lithuania.

Equally important, to my mind, is the greater attention paid to the development of general skills and competencies. In a modern Europe approaching the 21st century, the ability to survive and be competitive will be guaranteed not by a fund of particular knowledge, of which Lithuanian students are quite proud, but by the ability to reason and to creatively apply knowledge in search of new solutions. In this area, though, our achievements are not that remarkable. I believe that the new core curriculum will definitely result in young people feeling far more competent in a changing Europe.

Currently under consideration are draft standards of achievement for lower secondary school pupils; the draft core curriculum and attainment standards for upper secondary school pupils have been finalized. With the support of the PHARE programme, the school leaving (maturity) examination system is being reformed to ensure objective assessment as well as a smooth and transparent advancement to higher education.

The PHARE programme has been vitally important to the successful implementation of our vocational education and training reform. The VET reform aims at changes in the labour market caused by new technologies. With the assistance of European experts, a White Book on vocational education and training in Lithuania has been compiled. In lieu of a rigid system of vocational training offering narrow specialisations, a system providing a more general education and one with greater reference to general competencies has started to be created.

Currently, a restructuring process of higher education that comprises the college sector and university higher education, is under way. Study programmes worked out are directly related to labour market demands as well as to European integration. A system of quality assessment of higher education institutions will be created.

At this time, a programme of the second phase of educational reform in Lithuania is being finalised. This programme provides for the updating of the Law on Education and the Law on Science and Studies. We must also enhance the role of school and teacher in the planning and development of educational content, as well as to changing the culture of inspection and control.

Parallel to the restructuring of the examination system and inspection, setting up of a system of educational monitoring is planned. In this field of activity, we are going to extensively refer to the experience of EU countries.

It is planned, with the support of the PHARE programme, to launch a new strategy for sustainable higher education reform. This will be based on the further structural development of higher education and its internationalisation, with preparation for EU membership speeding up.

Educational research is also planned to be developed. Of particular importance to us is international comparative research. The first instance of this kind of research that Lithuania has participated in, has been constituted by the TIMSS research. Its results have been very useful in the updating of educational content and detailing the educational reform plans.

Lithuania is striving for a speedy social and economic progress. Education is one of the most significant prerequisites for that kind of progress. Our wish is that our educational system should be as effective as possible, yet we are not always in a position to adequately evaluate its quality, owing to which even a certain feeling of insecurity is often engendered in our society. Therefore, the following items are of particular importance to Lithuania:

· to know the main guidelines of the European educational development (educational vision) and to refer to them in the creation of our own educational development plans that would cater to Lithuania's situation;

· to have the opportunity make an overall comparison of the Lithuanian system of education with the educational systems of other European countries;

· to be able to make use of EU countries' expertise in the field of education, as well as in the creation of a monitoring system;

· to participate in the exchanges of pupils, students, teachers and lecturers;

· to achieve that documents testifying one's educational level issued in Lithuania be recognised in the European countries.

Therefore, it is with special attention that we have been perusing the documents that we received a fortnight before prepared by the European Commission on the second phase of the Community vocational training action programme Leonardo da Vinci and on the second phase of the Community action programme in the field of education SOCRATES.