The impact of education in the development process in the Baltic States

The education forms the basis of every country, as Walter Cronkite said “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.” The Baltic countries are form by Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Balkan countries are form by Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and the European part of Turkey. The Baltic and Balkan countries have been developing through these years, and the reason is that they have improved their education system.

Baltic Countries

In the case of Estonia in the Baltic countries the education covers the preschool, elementary, secondary, vocational, higher and adult education. Their main objective is the development of a more open society; this means a place where each individual would be a lifelong learner. All the people in Estonia must attend school since they are 7 years old and until they obtain a basic education, one of the best things of their educational system is that all the basic education is funded by the state and municipal governments so nobody should worry about the money. During the past few years more students are aiming for higher education. The purpose is to create lifetime opportunities for all the population so they can continue studying throughout their lives and thus help improve the competitiveness of Estonian enterprises and society, another place that is moving forward in education since the past few years is Lithuania, by the reform of the education that they started implementing in 1998, just after the restoration of their independence, for them the education became a priority. Great attention is paid to the reform of the school network in order to improve it and to create equal conditions for schoolchildren living in cities and villages; it has been confirmed the good quality and high level of education, by the success of students in many international Olympiads. Nowadays these countries are becoming a more open society with the capability of dealing with all the aspects that the globalization implies, such as the relations, and they will be prepared to in a future become a world power, also they are breaking the barriers in terms of discrimination and lack of access to the villages, this will lead to a equal society where everybody will be able to succeed.

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