A national centralised graduate tracking approach, based on administrative data, was implemented in higher education in 2019. In vocational education and training (VET), the implementation is in progress. The education ministry has already acquired initial data (for 2018 and 2019) on VET graduates from the national statistics office. However, publishing the data analysis requires changes in legislation that are expected to be adopted in Q1 of 2022. The VET tracking data are therefore expected to be published in mid-2022.

Several institutions are involved in graduate tracking. Schools submit raw data to the State education information system, which is coordinated by the education ministry. The national statistics office processes them together with data from other national registers, i.e. tax office information on employees, taxpayers and their income, and the public employment service information on the unemployed and jobseekers.  

The graduate tracking data contain:

  • socio-biographical and socioeconomic information: (name, date of birth (year), gender, personal identification number (only for data processing));
  • information on education and training: (VET programme code in the Latvian education qualifications system, title of the programme, professional qualification and EQF/LQF level);
  • information on employment or continuation of education and training: (employment status: employed as per qualification or in the relevant sector; generally employed, self-employed or continuing studies; unemployed; inactive (economically); number of companies founded by graduates; number of graduates who founded companies; number of graduates owning shares in companies);
  • additional information: (number of graduates with residence permit; emigrant graduates; graduates by administrative region).       

The graduate tracking data follow NACE and ISCO classifications and cover higher education programmes at EQF levels 5, 6 and 7, as well as VET programmes at EQF levels 3 and 4. Each graduate’s data will be tracked for 10 years. For example, the 2018 graduates will be monitored annually until 2028. Graduate tracking data on higher education graduates are published on the education ministry’s website and on open data portal, where CSV files are also available. VET graduate tracking data will be published there as well, as soon as they are available.

Please cite this news item as: ReferNet Latvia; Cedefop (2022). Latvia: centralised approach to graduate tracking. National news on VET

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