OECD Reviews of School Resources: Lithuania 2016

This report for Lithuania forms part of the OECD Review of Policies to Improve the Effectiveness of Resource Use in Schools (also referred to as the School Resources Review, see for further details). The purpose of the review is to explore how school resources can be governed, distributed, utilised and managed to improve the quality, equity and efficiency of school education. School resources are understood in a broad way, including financial resources (e.g. expenditures on education, school budget), physical resources (e.g. school infrastructure, computers), human resources (e.g. teachers, school leaders) and other resources (e.g. learning time).

Lithuania was one of the education systems which opted to participate in the country review strand and host a visit by an external review team. Members of the OECD review team were Claire Shewbridge (OECD Secretariat), co-ordinator of the review; Katrina Godfrey (Department of Education in Northern Ireland); Deborah Nusche (OECD Secretariat); and Zoltn Hermann (Hungarian Academy of Sciences). The biographies of the members of the OECD review team are provided in . This publication is the report from the OECD review team. It provides, from an international perspective, an independent analysis of major issues facing the use of school resources in Lithuania, current policy initiatives, and possible future approaches. The report serves three purposes: i) to provide insights and advice to the Lithuanian education authorities; ii) to help OECD countries understand the Lithuanian approach to the use of school resources; and iii) to provide input for the final comparative analysis of the OECD School Resources Review.

The scope for the analysis in this report includes early childhood education and school education. At the request of the Lithuanian authorities, the focus areas of the Review of School Resources in Lithuania are: i) funding of school education; ii) organisation of the school network; and iii) the teaching profession and school leadership (including improving their attractiveness). The analysis presented in the report refers to the situation faced by the education system in December 2014, when the OECD review team visited Lithuania.

The involvement of Lithuania in the OECD review was co-ordinated by Vilma Bakit, Head of Teacher Activity Division, Department of Lifelong Learning in the Ministry of Education and Science. An important part of the involvement of Lithuania was the preparation of a comprehensive and informative Country Background Report (CBR) on school resource use authored by the National Agency of School Evaluation in Lithuania. The OECD review team is very grateful to the main authors of the CBR and to all those who assisted in providing a high-quality and informative document. The CBR is an important output from the OECD project in its own right as well as an important source for the OECD review team. Unless indicated otherwise, the data for this report are taken from the Lithuanian Country Background Report or updates provided by the Ministry of Education and Science from the Education Management Information System (EMIS). The CBR follows guidelines prepared by the OECD Secretariat and provides extensive information, analysis and discussion in regard to the national context, the organisation of the education system, the use of school resources and the views of key stakeholders. In this sense, the CBR and this report complement each other and, for a more comprehensive view of the effectiveness of school resource use in Lithuania, should be read in conjunction.