Major Danish fingerprints on university reform in Latvia

HHE manager of developing project.

The law degree in Latvia is now concurrent with the European standard. A team of professors and assistant professors from four Danish universities have collaborated on the development of the Bachelor, Master and PhD’s degrees.

The team is lead by Handelshøjskolens Efteruddannelsescenter and the educational reform team from the legal faculty at the University of Latvia in Riga is the largest project so far under Support Program for NGO Co-operation between the Nordic - Baltic Countries under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to aid integration of new EU countries.

Incorporation of new reading schedules, new evaluation and examination principles as well as a number of Danish guest speakers has constituted a major part of the work for the past 4-5 years, just as Latvian researchers have written a handful of new case books.

The glory of it all has been 9 PhD theses that contribute to ensuring a new generation of internationally oriented teachers and researchers in the field of law in Latvia.

Director Peter Stolt, Handelshøjskolens Efteruddannelsescenter, is impressed with how far they have come in a relatively short time despite academic traditions being something you do not just change at a whim.

“It has been a challenge adjusting Latvian university traditions to the international standards on the duration of a degree, as well as for the contents and the exams, but thanks to model collaboration between the Danish academic environments the Latvians have gotten assistance they needed.”

“A closer professional contact has been created mainly between the new generation of Latvian PhD’s and more than 15 Danish university employees, which offers many possibilities for development in years to come. We often forget that Riga is a lot closer to Denmark than Paris,” Peter Stolt says.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has donated almost DKK 6 million to the project, which is headed academically by Professor Jens Fejø, Copenhagen Business School, Professor Karsten Engsig Sørensen, Handelshøjskolen in Århus, Professor Nis Jul Clausen, Syddansk University and Professor Jens Vedsted-Nielsen, Aarhus University. Danish universities, particularly CBS and Syddansk University, have been very involved in EU-preparation of the Baltic countries.