Academic guidance

Learning support is available for pupils with learning difficulties and for talented children. Schools offer individual lessons or lessons for groups of children for this reason. Only pupils who wish to participate and have application from parents, attend these group or facultative lessons.  Pupils may receive academic support also during prolonged day groups. 

Psychological counselling

Schools may offer psychological support to pupils, pedagogues and parents provided by psychologists and social pedagogues. Schools provide first aid and health preventive care for pupils; inform the child’s general practitioner about health problems.

Career guidance

Career guidance during integrated primary and lower-secondary education is available to all pupils. In most cases, choice of profession is one of the themes discussed in so-called class lessons. There must be at least one teaching period for all the grades every week called class lesson and organized by class teacher (form tutor). Class lessons are for discussing various themes like traffic safety, handling extreme situations, healthy lifestyle, career guidance etc.

Greater attention to educational and career guidance is paid in the last classes of integrated primary and lower-secondary education like the 8th or the 9th. However, Social Science subject is taught in all integrated primary and lower-secondary education classes (1-9). This helps pupils understand themselves and social processes, acquire cooperation skills, make decisions, argue etc. It also annually devotes several lessons to guidance-related themes thus supplementing guidance and counseling service offered by schools.

Career guidance and information on tertiary education is available to all pupils. There are also various kinds of assistance and services available, such as psychological support, health care and interest-related education. Educational and career guidance for young people is provided by the State Employment Agency and the National Resource Centre for Career Guidance - Euroguidance Latvia.

A wide range of information on education is available at Euroguidance Latvia, which collects, produces and disseminates information about education and training opportunities in Latvia and other European countries at different levels and types of education. It organises information meetings with pupils and their parents, produces and distributes printed materials and promotes cooperation between various actors in the field of education guidance and counselling at national and international level. 

Besides, career consultant training programmes as further education modules have been developed for actually working teachers.

General upper-secondary schools provide pupils with information about further studies. Since the aim of upper-secondary education is to provide the pupil with necessary skills and knowledge to continue education, usually there are no other measures taken at the school level to facilitate young people’s access to the labour market. However, some upper-secondary schools provide a work shadowing experience in order to help pupils to gain first-hand knowledge of the world of work, and organize pupil enterprises in collaboration with Junior Achievement.

The Policy Framework for the Development of Education 2007 – 2013 foresees the development of the National data base on education possibilities in Latvia.

Another source of information is prakse.lv (internship)/ virtualaprakse.lv (virtual-internship) where pupils/students can gain information about the newest internships, get acquainted with occupational standards, explore the everyday of various occupations, study programmes, fill in career tests and quizzes about respective occupations etc. This portal is developed in cooperation with Employers’ Confederation of Latvia and over 2200 enterprises, 1000 education institutions and 190 NGOs.  It is planned to gradually involve over local 5000 enterprises and some foreign enterprises as well.

Various educational institutions participate in annual exhibitions organized all around offering information about the education possibilities they provide. Information about educational institutions can be found in the annual publication "Where to study further" as well as in newspapers and periodicals. Higher education institutions host the open door days to provide prospective students with the information on studies.

As regards vocational upper-secondary education, practical lessons take place in school workshops and in the real work environment in enterprises. Local municipalities cooperate with organizations of employers to provide trainees with placements in enterprises in order to guarantee the possibility of practice during the studies. A subcouncil of the National Tripartite Co-operation Council, the Tripartite Council of Professional Education and Employment, is an advisory council developing suggestions for the state policy and strategy in the area of vocational education and employment. Representatives of employers are involved in the development of occupational standards and participate in the commission of qualification examinations.