On the 3rd of December the annual meeting of the ENIC/NARIC centers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania took place online. Such meetings are usually held in the first quarter of the year in one of the countries. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the date and format of the meeting were changed.
During the meeting, the representatives of the three centres discussed the organisation of work during the conditions of pandemic, the measures taken to ensure continuous academic recognition of foreign qualifications, and the occurred challenges in such special working circumstances. Depending on the available technical possibilities and the peculiarities of the established work process, currently Lithuanian ENIC / NARIC works on-line fully, while the Latvian and Estonian centers combine distance and work in the office. At the meeting, Lithuania presented the electronic recognition system EPE IS launched in March of this year. The Estonian and Latvian centres shared their experience in facilitating the recognition process in pandemic conditions, such as the acceptance of digitalized documents for recognition.
Representatives of each of the countries also reviewed the recent changes that took place and/or were planned in the countries' education systems. All three Baltic States are discussing accession to the Global Convention on the Recognition of Foreign Qualifications and all three centers are actively involved in international projects.
We are glad that even a pandemic does not hinder close cooperation between the centers and look forward to meeting face to face next year.
