Why Don’t Institutions Trust Lithuanian Teachers? | Conversation with Aida Mačerinskienė | Blind Spot #4

SUMMARY

Under Lithuanian law, university admission is based on national exam results. The argument that this system ensures educational quality doesn’t hold up well — foreign universities trust Lithuanian teachers’ grades and admit Lithuanian students based on their final-year trimester marks. Applicants often learn they’ve been accepted long before taking their exams.

Lithuanian universities also follow international practice when admitting foreign students, evaluating trimester grades rather than waiting for final exams. If foreign applicants had to wait until June to find out whether they were admitted, none of them would choose to study in Lithuania — they would go elsewhere.

So why do Lithuanian institutions distrust Lithuanian teachers and universities to select the right students without relying on national exams?

In the fourth episode of Blind Spot, Artūras Jonkus explores blind spots in education with Prof. Dr. Aida Mačerinskienė, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Vilnius University.