TERTIARY EDUCATION IN LITHUANIA:

FROM INCLUSION TO EXCELLENCE

OECD Accession Launch Event, Vilnius, October 16, 2017

• How to create a high-performing system?

• Does the system perform at a high level? In what respects?

• If not, what might be done differently?

2

How Does Lithuania Compare?

Considering…

Age (since restoration of independence in 1990)

Wealth (31% LT mean GDP/capita)

Size (2.88 m) and Openness (within EU)

Language (Chinese 1.2 b., English 400 + 500 m.,

Spanish 400 m.) – vs. Ireland, Singapore, NZ

What are reasonable expectations of performance?

Public and private resources invested

Access and Equity

Employment Outcomes

International Engagement

Research output and support for innovation

Dimensions of Performance

As a percentage of GDP (1.7%), total public and

private expenditure close to OECD average

0

0,5

1

1,5

2

2,5

3% of GDP

Public expenditure on education institutions Private expenditure on education institutions OECD average

OECD average (total expenditure)

About 75% of expenditure on tertiary educational

institutions from public sources (OECD 70%)

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20

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50

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80

90

100

%

Public expenditure on educational institutions Household expenditure Expenditure of other private entities All private sources

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

% All tertiary excluding R&D activities R&D All tertiary

Annual expenditure per student lower than

average due to smaller GDP per capita

Annual expenditure per student by tertiary educational institutions for all services, relative to per capita GDP

(2013)

Above average in tertiary attainment among 25-64

year-olds

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10

20

30

40

50

60

%

2015 2005

Among households (25-34) in lowest income

quintile, 16% completed tertiary education.

Percentage of 25-34 year-olds with tertiary attainment, by household income quintile (2014)

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10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Q1 Q2 Cohort average Q3 Q4 Q5

%

Tertiary grads have higher employment rates than

upper secondary (+ 20%) though college grads

have higher unemployment than university grads

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10

20

30

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50

60

70

80

90

100

Lower secondary Upper secondary Post-secondary non-tertiary Bachelor's or equivalent Master's or equivalent%

Earnings of tertiary grads is 149% (BA) and 182%

(MA/PhD) of upper secondary – near OECD

averages

25-64 year-olds with income from full time employment; upper secondary education = 100

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120

140

160

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240

260

All tertiary Short cycle tertiary Bachelor's or equivalent Master's, doctoral or equivalentIndex

• With modest levels of investment

• High levels of participation in tertiary education

• With differentiated (binary) provision

• With labour market outcomes for graduates typical of OECD countries

• Provided by institutions that operate with considerable autonomy

• Inside funding and QA systems that conform to standards of international practice

• But…..

On key dimensions important

achievements

Researcher mobility abroad for research projects low (stays GT 3 months duration) (About ½ Hungarian rate)

Research carried out in collaboration with foreign researchers is low (40% of Estonian level)

Inward student mobility low, low at BA (2.4%) and PhD (3.0%) levels, and 2% of researchers

PhDs awarded to LT students abroad vs. international students in LT, 10:1

Low International Engagement of Tertiary System

Scientific publications per million population

International scientific

co-publications per million population

Public-private co-publications

per million population

PCT patents applications

per billion GDP (in PPS€)

Latvia 760 221.0 0.5 0.82

Lithuania 1 022 355.3 1.7 0.60

Poland 981 251.2 3.7 0.51

Estonia 1 997 907.7 6.8 1.00

Denmark 4 066 2 066.7 143.5 6.24

Sweden 3 576 1 774.1 107.8 7.99

EU-28 average - 459.2 33.9 3.53

Relatively low level of R and D performance

32% enrolment decline 2010 to 2014 in tertiary

system, with challenges ahead

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200

400

600

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1400

1600

1800

2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

Klaipėda University Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences

Mykolas Romeris University Šiauliai University

1. Consolidate the network of higher education institutions to create higher performing system

2. Link resources to more closely to performance

3. Pursue balanced internationalisation

4. Monitor and improve equity

How to raise performance to (or beyond) OECD levels

where gaps exist?

Universities PolytechnicsNumber of inhabitants (in million)

Number of HEI students

(in thousands, 2012)

Number of HEIs per million

inhabitants

Number of HEIs per 10

000 students

Lithuania 23 24 3.2 159.5 14.7 2.9

Finland 14 24 5.5 308.9 6.9 1.2

Denmark 8 16 5.7 275.0 4.2 0.9

Ireland 7 14 4.6 192.6 4.6 1.1

Netherlands 14 37 16.9 793.7 3.0 0.6

Switzerland 12 9 8.2 269.6 2.6 0.8

17

Unusually large number of higher education

institutions (to enrolment, population, area)

Number of higher education institutions per inhabitant and student (2012)

Low student numbers result in inefficiency in use of human (teacher) and physical (facilities) resources

Low enrolments pose a threat to the quality of instructional programmes as course offerings and instructor numbers decline, and peer learning weakens

Small size limits critical mass of researchers, facilities, and research infrastructure needed to perform scientific research at an international level

Why consolidate?

To improve efficiency in the use of public

resources

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Public universities

Number of institutions Number of students (in thousands) Number of teaching staff (in hundreds)

• No standardised measures of learning process or learning outcomes, however…

• SKVC programme review teams have focused on programme size and its impact on learning – noting the negative consequences of low enrolments for the quality of group discussions, team projects, student presentations, and peer learning activities.

• As enrolments declined at one public college, 2/3 of students studied on a part-time and distance basis, dropouts rose beyond one in three students, and employment outcomes for a majority of programmes were below national averages. Authorisation to offer study programmes was withdrawn and the college’s remaining students were transferred to nearby higher education institutions.

To improve the quality of teaching and learning

Klaipeda University, Revenue, Size, and Research Performance

To improve the effectiveness of resources

invested in research

2010 2011 2102 2013 2014 2015 2016*

Total budget (million EUR) 14.52 20.83 22.62 23.91 27.19 26.98

Budget for research (million EUR) 4.48 10.48 11.97 13.65 17.16

Total number of students 7 412 6 894 6 294 5 417 4 897 4 370 3 877

Total number of researchers 546 555 548 441 470

Teaching staff (professors, docents, lecturers and assistants, FTE) 471 473 434 373 349 351

Students/teaching staff ratio 15.73 14.57 14.50 14.52 14.03 12.45

Researchers (FTE) 53 54 144 56 71 64

Total staff (research and teaching) 524 527 578 429 420 415

Number of national patents 0 0 0 0 1 0

Number of publications (Clarivate Analytics, InCites) 69 91 90 96 107 111 72

Number of publications with foreign co-author (Clarivate Analytics, InCites)

17 32 34 31 52 64 45

Be flexible (binary vs. flexible and continuous differentiation)

Help institutions capitalise on opportunities provided by consolidation + performance-based environment

Protect the losers

Talk to Nordic neighbours (e.g. Denmark)

Take the long view (e.g. Finland)

How to consolidate?

Research funding

External (EU) funding – help ensure investments are made where

they can be effectively used

National funding – link assessment of research performance to

international standards

Within institutions – link performance to reward

Operational Funding to Institutions

Focus on afternoon sessions – transitioning from an input to a

performance-based funding system

While consolidating, strengthen links between

funding and performance

• A restructured network of tertiary institutions

• A policy framework that supports flexibly differentiated institutions that are clearly rewarded for performance

• Can provide a tertiary system more effective in helping Lithuania respond to its demographic challenges and take advantage of economic opportunities ahead

In conclusion….