Lithuania

image/svg+xml Map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) Map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) A blank map of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and countries fully surrounded by the EHEA. Every country has an id which is its ISO-3116-1-ALPHA2 code in lower case. Members of the EU have a class="eu", all EHEA countries have a class="europe", non-EHEA countries have a class="nonehea". Image based on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blank_map_of_Europe_(with_disputed_regions).svg by Júlio "Tintazul" Reis and Marian "maix" Sigler. Made by Colin Tück, EQAR, 2017 Released under CreativeCommons Attribution ShareAlike (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/).
  • Membership in EQAR
    Lithuania has been a Governmental Member of EQAR since March 2015.

    Read more: all Governmental Members of EQAR

  • General information on higher education

    Higher education is offered in Lithuania by state or private universities (universitetas) and colleges (kolegija). All study programmes are listed in the register of the Ministry of Education and Science (ministry).

  • National external quality assurance requirements

    Programmes and higher education institutions go through an evaluation every six or three years (see below). This cycle of evaluations is specified in the 2016 Law and the SKVC's methodologies.

    Lithuania is currently replacing the evaluation of individual programmes with the evaluations of study fields.

    • Institutional
      Accreditation is awarded for 6 years in case of a positive assessment, or for 3 years is higher education institution received a negative (conditional) assessment. Where a higher education institution has been repeatedly negatively assessed or where the performance results of a newly established institution do not meet the conditions set forth at the time of its establishment the result of the review is non-accreditation.

    • (cluster) Programme evaluation
      Evaluations are repeated every three or six years depending on the outcomes of the previous procedure.

  • Cross-border quality assurance

    In Lithuania higher education institutions may choose a suitable EQAR-registered agency.

    Limited to (cluster) programme evaluation

    • Eligibility requirements for foreign agencies: EQAR registration

    • Conditions for the agencies’ work (e.g. criteria to be used): Programme accreditation has to be carried out using the national criteria (see below). The evaluation should consider the local context, the needs of Lithuania as a state, as well as the economic, social and cultural developments.

    • Recognition of reviews carried out by foreign agencies: The accreditation decision (based on the external evaluation report) is taken by the Center for Quality Assessment in Higher Education (SKVC).

    Read more: countries where higher education institutions may choose a suitable EQAR-registered agency

  • European Approach for Quality Assurance of Joint Programmes

    In Lithuania the European Approach is available to higher education institutions under certain conditions.

    The European Approach may be used considering the order of the Director of Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education on Methodology for the Evaluation of New Study Programmes.

    Read more: countries where the European Approach is available to higher education institutions

  • Further information

Registered agencies operating in Lithuania