ECER Network 11 Budapest 2015

1. Development of Afterschool
Education System in Latvia:
Possible Ways for Quality
Assurance in Nowadays Situation
Daiga Kalnina, assistant professor,
University of Latvia, Faculty of Pedagogy, Psychology
and Art

2. Charasteristics of Afterschool
Education System
• Interest-related education – realisation of the individual
educational needs and desires of a person regardless of age
and previously acquired education
• Professional orientation education – the acquisition of
systematised knowledge and skills, as well as the formation
of values orientation in art, culture or sport concurrently with
the basic education or secondary education level, which
provides a possibility to prepare for the acquisition of a
professional education in the selected direction.

3. Borders of research: Interest-related
education
• For 2 – 25 years old children and youth.
• Sponsored by government, local municipalities and
parents.
• Realised by schools, afterschool education centers.
• Child have an opportunity to freely choose and
acquire several interest-related education
programmes.

4. Meta-theoretical Framework of
Research
• System theory in career development as
integrative person-in-context model in
career development (Patton, McMahon,
2006),
• Experiental learning theory (Kolb, 1984).

5. Theoretical background of research
• Understanding of non-formal education (Clarijs, 2008),
• Afterschool education and its historical development
(Skatkins, 1985; Šibajevs, 2002; Law of Education, 1999),
• Understanding about career development as lifelong
self-construction (Super, 1956, 1980; Havighurst, 1972),
• Understanding about development of generic
employability skills (CDELL, 2007; Johnson, Sawicki, Pearson,
Lindsay, McQuaid, Dutton, 2009; Lowden, Hall, Elliot, Lewin, 2011; CBI,
2011; Pegg, Waldock, Hendy-Isaac, Lawton, 2012).

6. Methodology
What society expect from
afterschool education system?
What society expect from
afterschool education system? Discourse analyze
How afterschool education
impact on skills and career
development?
How afterschool education
impact on skills and career
development?
What are the possible ways for
quality assurance of
development of afterschool
education system in Latvia in
nowadays situation?
What are the possible ways for
quality assurance of
development of afterschool
education system in Latvia in
nowadays situation?
Analyze of literature Questionnaire
Expert discussions
In-depth
interviews

7. Main discourses
1. Afterschool education system must be without any
changes, the main potential of it is to keep traditions for
national traditions of singing and dancing.
2. Afterschool education must be changed to use money
effectively to compensate disadvantages of formal
education like skills necessary for career.
3. Afterschool education system is necessary as way and
place to spend time safely between school lessons and
end of working day of parents.

8. Research base
• 308 randomly selected respondents:
– from different age groups from 16 to 67 years old (16-25: 22.3%,
26-35: 22.7%, 36-45g: 24.6%, 46-55:18.8%, 56 and older:
11.3%),
– with different education level ( basic 7.1%, secondary 8.7%,
professional 5.5%, higher 78%),
– with different study destination (country school 20.4%, small
town school 30.7%, Riga 30.7%, other city school 17.8%).
• All respondents during school time participated at least
in one afterschool educational program.

9. Development of generic
employability skills
Self-
direction
Team-
working
Underst
anding
about
business
Problem-
solving
Communica
tion,
reading,
writing
Calculat
ing
Use of IT Initiative
and
enterprisi
ng
More in
interest-
related
education
38,8 46,6 11 28,8 11,7 5,8 8,4 39,5
More in
school lessons
21 17,8 28,8 27,5 65 74,8 41,1 12,9
More in
school life
17,2 20,7 12,9 21,7 9,4 4,9 10,4 22
Impossible to
evaluate
22,7 14,6 46,9 21,7 13,6 14,2 39,8 25,2

10. Development of personality
characteristics

11. Development of generic
employability skills to achieve goal

13. Main findings
1. Afterschool education system helps to develop career
management skills and personal charasteristics important for
successful career like self-awareness, problem solving skills, time
management, motivation, team-work and give the opportunity to
experiment with different kinds of jobs to understand what is/is not
suitable for individual.
2. 97% of respondents agree that there must be state funded system
of afterschool education in Latvia as it works as compensative
mechanism of lacks of formal education system and gives the
opportunity to try different professions to understand what kind of
job person want and can to do.

14. Results from interviews
• All interviewed respondents participated in some
interest-related programms in the same time.
• They emphasize that all these programms worked as
complex system for them (different content, but
organizational forms and methods allowed to acheive the
result: comprehensively developed personality with extra
skills).
• Teacher as personality is important.
• All respondents remember interest-related programms
as something nice and want to participate again.

15. Problems of Interest-related
Education System
• It is not possible to ensure an equal offer in all
administrative territories.
• There are not clear public procurement for
content and methods of interest-reated
programmes.
• Definition of interest-related education in
education Law is too wide and unconcrete that
allows to interpret it in different ways.

16. Main recommendations
• Latvia must keep the afterschool education system,
but make changes in regulations about content of
interest-related programmes to achieve learning
outcomes that are oriented on development of career
management skills.
• The clear system of payment is necessary to ensure
equal opportunities for all children and to ask for
quality.
• Clear and concrete definition is neccessary for
interest-related education including aim of interest-
related education.