Education and Science, Latvia, Legislation, Technology

LIKTA's President Signe Balina said during the signing ceremony that nowadays no business or individual could imagine doing without use of technologies and schools was the place to learn the basic skills. The ability to read and write was and still is important but the time has come to realize that computer literacy is equally important, she said.

Guntars Catlaks, the head of the National Center for Education, said his organization was aware that cooperation with different sectors, in particular the ICT industry, was “absolutely critical” in development of education content. Keeping in touch with the industry representatives and keeping track of the latest trends is vital for future digital competence of today's schoolchildren, he said.

Previously Balina told LETA that there was a disastrous shortage of IT experts in Latvia. In Scandinavia, IT specialists account for 4% of all employees but in Latvia they represent only 1.9% of the total workforce, and a large share of their output or 42% is being exported therefore we do not have enough IT experts working for the Latvian market, she said.