On 8 June 2018, Ministers of Education of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia signed an intergovernmental Agreement on the automatic academic recognition of qualifications concerning higher education.
This Agreement aims to facilitate recognition of qualifications concerning higher education, for academic purposes, and to promote exchange of information on education systems of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
The provisions of the Agreement will be applied to automatic recognition of qualifications concerning higher education encompassing qualifications giving access to higher education and higher education qualifications, which belong to the current education systems of three Baltic States. The provisions regarding automatic academic recognition will be only applied to quality assured higher education qualifications.
According to the Agreement, a qualification concerning higher education awarded in one Baltic State will be automatically considered comparable to a qualification placed on the same level in the other contracting state, without any additional formalities. These provisions will apply to qualifications awarded after the intergovernmental treaty will be ratified by Parliaments in Lithuania and Latvia.
It should be noted that this Agreement will not affect the application of national and international legislation of the states regulating professional recognition.
The initiative on automatic recognition of academic diplomas is supported by the European Commission in order to facilitate mobility of young people.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia prepared themselves for the automatic academic recognition by participating in the AURBELL project , co-founded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission.
Photo: from left to right: Jurgita Petrauskienė, Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Lithuania;
Kārlis Šadurskis, Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Latvia;
Mailis Reps, Minister of Education and Research of the Republic of Estonia
