On 28 May 2018, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Higher Education Export Association (Study in Latvia Consortium) signed a Memorandum of Cooperation on attracting foreign students.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomes the commitment of the Higher Education Export Association and its members to a careful selection of students. This is a good example that we encourage other Latvia-accredited higher education institutions to follow,” said Andrejs Pildegovičs, State Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Memorandum of Cooperation is an essential instrument to promote joint activities, since it displays a mutual commitment to ensuring that the best foreign students travel to Latvia to study in higher education institutions accredited in this country.
Pursuant to the memorandum, higher education institutions – the members of the Higher Education Export Association – through testing the students’ general knowledge and foreign language skills, will select candidates who meet the appropriate admission criteria, while the Foreign Ministry will ensure that the students’ visa applications are duly processed in line with the time schedule laid down in the memorandum.
The need for a cooperation memorandum was mainly proven by the rapidly increasing number of applications for student visas received at the Embassy of Latvia in India, the education export being one of Latvia’s priority lines of action in India in recent years. However, selection of potential entrants according to high quality criteria is vital when attracting foreign students, the main responsibility for which lies on schools themselves.