The Bologna Process started in 1999, aiming to elaborate an overarching framework of qualifications for the European Higher Education Area. The doctoral level as the third cycle was introduced for promoting closer links between research and higher education. The implementation of doctoral programme of pedagogy has strengthened the area of educational research. The general goal of the doctoral education is to provide doctoral students with an in-depth knowledge of the field of research and the capability to produce novel scientific knowledge independently. The aim of the paper is to characterize the realisation of teachers' education as doctoral training in the context of Bologna Process strategies. The seminar in Salzburg set up ten basic principles concerning doctoral education. Learning outcomes in the field of research training are one of the basic building blocks of European higher education quality. The quality of teachers' education on doctoral studies level is depending on advanced learning outcomes of an individual. The goals of doctoral education are increasing internationalisation, co-operation between academies, promoting academic careers and establishing post-doctoral positions. The investigation about research training was carried out at Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy doctoral study programme in pedagogy. A questionnaire about aspects of doctoral studies was developed for obtaining information for analysis and was given to teachers (doctoral students). Respondents were asked to complete the questionnaire focusing on learning outcomes. The estimation of the results was made summing the answers, and the percentage was calculated. Feedback from doctoral students plays an important role in the further development of the curricula.

The goal of the research was to evaluate the opportunities in preparation of logistics specialists offered by Latvian universities and to formulate problem solutions. To achieve the goal, study programmes and course syllabuses offered by Latvian universities and colleges were analysed from the logistics perspective. Opportunities to acquire logistics knowledge offered in Latvia by distance, in further education and life-long learning programmes were reviewed. In the end, it was concluded that the development of logistics education in Latvia does not correspond to the speed of the development of logistics industry. Currently Latvia offers 4 Logistics study programmes, but only one study programme offers education corresponding to the professional standard – Manager of Logistics Department – as approved by the MoES. Latvia University of Agriculture currently has no logistics study programmes but different logistics subjects are included in the study programmes of 4 Faculties, therefore there are vast opportunities and it is necessary to develop the offer of logistics education, first by giving students the opportunity to choose specialisation in logistics in the Faculties in the study areas of which logistics is especially important and necessary – Faculty of Economics, Technical Faculty, Faculty of Forestry, Faculty of Food Technology, and Faculty of Agriculture.

Nowadays the need for a qualitative, accessible and varied lifelong learning is becoming more and more necessary. In Latvia, different institutions take part in the implementation of lifelong learning; however, in spite of the negative factors of demography and migration, changes of work force supply and demand, investment and information shortage, the role of universities has not been properly investigated. The role of higher education in lifelong learning was studied in 9 state universities of Latvia in the period of 2013 – 2015. Monographic analysis and method of synthesis, data statistical research methods – grouping, comparison, relative and average indicators, as well as dynamics line analysis was used in the article. The study proved that the number of occupied work places has increased in 2015. However, it has not reached the average of ten and seven years since 2006 and 2009. Comparing with the free vacancies, the number of them has increased by 2164, especially in the profession group specialists and senior specialists, which as well as executives, is the target audience of universities, which in its turn is a lifelong learning event insufficiently used potential. The universities have suffered because of demographic and migration factors: the rate of student number increases (-9.4%). In order to reach the goals of education politics, universities try to direct education function from studies to lifelong learning; they try to improve existing lifelong learning courses and programs, as well as to propose new ones in order to offer something for workforce corrections.

Quality assessment of a study programme is a topical issue in the single education area. Quality is not a unequivocal term in higher education area, which lends itself to many understandings and interpretations according to different criteria. The best practice of software engineering may be applied for the study programme evaluation if by analogy it is viewed as software product. Study programme similar to software product has internal and external quality. Students as direct users of the study programme may be engaged in the evaluation of its external quality, in case the evaluation of internal quality of the study programme is mainly based on internal resources of a higher education institution. The paper provides the methodology for evaluation of external quality of a study programme based on software product quality model and quality assurance standards. Approbation of the methodology was started in 2009 at the Faculty of Information Technologies, where students evaluated external quality of undergraduate study programmes. Results obtained during the approbation lead to the conclusion that the chosen methodology ensures significant information for the enhancement of quality of a study course and simultaneously the entire study programme.

Academic staff of higher education institutions has to extend students’ vision and promote their variability of views on competitiveness in order to promote prospective hospitality managers’ competitiveness. The aim and goal of academic activities of the university teaching staff is to search for appropriate or relevant means and provide the necessary conditions to foster the students’ thinking and understanding of the concept of ‘competitiveness’ according to a new paradigm of this notion. The pedagogical experiment was carried out at the Latvia University of Agriculture. The aim of the study was to promote the opinions’ change regarding the notion of prospective hospitality managers’ competitiveness; the developed competitiveness self-assessment method was used as a pedagogical tool. The results of the research (the concluding statistics of the Wilcoxon test and the Sign Test) show that the students’ opinions regarding the notion of prospective hospitality managers’ competitiveness have significantly changed before and after their competitiveness self-assessment. Thus the theoretically grounded method of competitiveness self-assessment approved by students and experts, including a questionnaire of the students’ survey, significantly extended the students’ vision as a pedagogical tool influencing the opinions regarding competitiveness notion among representatives of the prospective hospitality managers’ profession.

Entrepreneurship education is a relevant topic in today’s study programs of higher education at two levels: as research object and as development of skills while preparing students. In fact, the latter is one of the most important objectives in Lithuanian universities aiming together with other disciplines at developing students’ entrepreneurial skills. The main aim of the article is to analyse theoretical and practical models of entrepreneurship education applied in universities and introduce development trends. Teaching process involves various methods, internships, consultation and instruction, but usually all activities are not systematically applied. From the behavioural perspective, this study analyses students towards entrepreneurship through the opportunity identification, motivational factors, information source, resources impact and entrepreneurial ability. Hypothetical deductive approach was used through a population sample of 194 students of Aleksandras Stulginskis University Faculty of Economics and management. The research summarized in this paper students attitude toward motives, factors encouraging and preventing entrepreneurship and information sources in the higher education institutions. The gap between teaching methods and student attitude towards at entrepreneurship educations can be reduced supplementing collaboration among stakeholders in the entrepreneurship education. In final part of the article, trends of entrepreneurship education in university enabling to assess dimensions of the development of entrepreneurship education are presented.

The aim of the study is using systematic literature analysis method – literature overview – identify the factors, which affect the competitiveness of a higher education institution in the conditions of globalization. Qualitative methods, as well as systematic literature analysis method – literature overview have been used in the study. More than 6000 scientific articles were considered to choose 20 full text articles for in-depth analysis. Main conclusions and results – the systematic literature analysis method – literature overview is a convenient tool for systematizing, selecting and collecting information about the research subject, using author’s articles, which have already gathered key information from a number of researchers of a specific topic together; the competitiveness of higher education institution is influenced by the internal factors that are formed by the internal environment of the higher education institution and external factors that are formed by the external micro-environment and macro-environment influenced by the state policy; an analysis of the internal and external factors of an institution is important in order to create competitive advantages in a higher education institution.

In educational strategy papers, it is determined that entrepreneurial development should be implemented already in schools. Various methods and approaches can be used for the development. The majority of entrepreneurial competences are developed at the university – subjects devoted to the development of entrepreneurship are included in the study programs. Environment of the university is very friendly to this – not only because of activities devoted to entrepreneurship occurring in the academic environment, plenty seminars and trainings, but also because of the students’ personal maturity and motivation. Scholars actively raise the following questions: how to develop entrepreneurial competences effectively? Which methods are the most applicable? What kind of innovative methods are the most necessary? 104 students, who tried simulation traineeship of entrepreneurial development, were questioned in order to analyse the impact of methods and the change in entrepreneurial competences. The research was carried out in the Faculty of Economics and Management of Aleksandras Stulginskis University. The participants of the research were involved in the business simulation, where they had an opportunity to estimate themselves and improve their backgrounds, abilities and skills. Methods promoting and developing creativity were applied in simulation business enterprises; however, not all methods had worked. The methods of graphic representation were used by the minority and they were not considered to be very effective. The aim of the research was to determine entrepreneurial competences and innovative educational methods theoretically and to test empirically the development of entrepreneurial competences via simulation method.

The socio-economic changes brought about by globalisation, the internationalisation and digitalisation of higher education, as well as the current demographic situation in Europe and Latvia, raise the issue of the competitiveness of academic staff in the context of multicultural higher education. The aim of the study is to provide a theoretical basis for the competitiveness of academic staff in the view of educational sciences, respecting the different trends and based on the conceptual approaches in personal/specialist competitiveness research. The following research methods were used: study, analysis and evaluation of scientific literature (theoretical research method); reflection of personal experience (empirical research method). As a result of the theoretical research, two trends for the substantiation of the concept of competitiveness in the educational sciences were identified. The first trend: the competitiveness of a person is substantiated through transfers from economic and management science, with a particular emphasis on specialist marketability and employability as a significant manifestation of competitiveness. The second trend: according to the new paradigm of competitiveness in educational sciences, the competitiveness of a human as a person and as a specialist is based on the perspective of pedagogy and psychology. The research results led to the conclusion that there are three conceptual approaches in the methodology of competitiveness research: 1) qualitative approach: identifies and lists competitive personality traits and qualities; 2) functional approach: describes the competitive behaviour of a person or specialist; 3) structural approach: competitiveness is substantiated as a complex combination of personal/ specialist qualities, identifying several structural components. All of these approaches are also characteristic to the research of competitiveness of academic staff. The following taxonomy should be respected in the substantiation of academic staff competitiveness: 1) substantiation of personal competitiveness; 2) substantiation of specialist competitiveness in the context of different industries; 3) the substantiation of the competitiveness of specifically academic staff in the context of the specifics of higher education.

The social environment of a university, which is comprised of students, teaching staff and parents, play an essential role in the educational process. Students’ decisions, learning and attainment could be considerably affected by relationships with their coursemates in particular. The present research therefore aims to examine students’ expectations towards their coursemates in the academic environment in Latvia. The research surveyed 979 students at Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies (2016–2018). The research has found that for students, the study process involves not only learning but also common events with their coursemates as well as informal relationships. Comparing the role of coursemates and the informal influence of parents and teaching staff, the respondents preferred the involvement of their coursemates. Larger differences in opinion were found for the informal role of teaching staff in learning. Of the respondents, 47% expected teaching staff to be friends, while 29% slightly agreed that the teaching staff had to be authorities and knowledgeable specialists, which indicated that it was important for some students to disassociate formal relationships from informal ones between students and teaching staff. The dispersion of opinions that could be observed for some variables might be explained by the specifics of the programmes the students represented. Statistically significant differences in opinion were found between bioscience and engineering students in relation to the attitude of teaching staff to students, parental support and coursemate support in learning (p is less than 0.05) – the bioscience students more often favoured informal relationship aspects.