Education and Science, Latvia, Legislation

This means that the decisions to grant doctorate degrees by the RTTEMA are illegitimate, the Education Quality Service informs.

The service states that the RTTEMA did not have the right to accept applications for doctorate degrees and neither to consider granting the degrees.

Also, the Education Quality Service has opened an administrative case against the RTTEMA Rector Dace Markus regarding violations of the system of education documents.

The Education Quality Service carried out the inspection from August 28 to September 5.

As reported, the Education and Science Ministry previously established that the RTTEMA may have granted doctorate degrees despite the fact that the academy has not been delegated this right.

At the moment, thirteen higher education institutions in Latvia have the right to issue doctorate degrees – but not RTTEMA. The ministry has established at least eight cases when doctorate degrees were awarded by the RTTEMA.

The degrees have been awarded to, for instance, Riga City Council member Baiba Brigmane (Unity), Latvian Academy of Culture professor Gunta Balina and others. The RTTEMA said that these persons should not take any action and that the RTTEMA would do everything in its power to ensure that they are not stripped off their degrees.

The RTTEMA also suspended a senior official responsible for the scientific work at the academy. Likewise, the RTTEMA requested Saeima Education, Culture and Science Committee to revise the relevant laws and regulations to ensure that they could not be misinterpreted and such incidents would not occur again.