Upper secondary education in Lithuania

Lithuania has achieved a very high level of attainment in upper secondary education, with more than nine in ten of today’s young Lithuanians forecasted to complete their upper secondary education over their lifetime. Even so, there is scope for improvement. Upper secondary vocational education has struggled to increase its attractiveness to learners, and to provide them strong labour market outcomes. Upper secondary general education has permitted graduates to successfully continue their studies at the tertiary level. However, the matura examination, a high-stakes school leaving and higher education entry examination, creates incentives for teachers and students to focus principally on tested subjects within the upper secondary general education curriculum, and on the accumulation rather than application of knowledge. Moreover, with one high-stakes examination at the end of secondary studies, schools find it challenging to create steady and consistent incentives for learning across the entire course of the secondary studies. This chapter examines these challenges and identifies policy options to boost the attractiveness of the vocational offer and to align the matura examination with the competency-focused intended curriculum.