Educational Requirements Seminar

The second Educational Requirements Seminar (ERS) took place in Riga at the Latvian Ministry of Defence on 12th of November. It was organised by the Baltic Defence College (BALTDEFCOL) as a joint effort by the College and three nations – Estonia, Latviaand Lithuania.

Photos by Latvian Ministry of Defence

The purpose of the seminar was to review educational requirements for Higher Command Studies Course (HCSC), Joint Command and General Staff Course (JCGSC), and Civil Servants' Course (CSC) to discuss expectations from the nations for each of the courses. The ERS is part of the BALTDEFCOL continued effort to ensure high quality of education and to prepare military and civilian personnel of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, but also NATO and partner nations for the future demanding careerin accordance to the NATO standards and nation’s needs, desires and expectations. The inputs from the countries during the seminar and outcomes of the discussion are taken further in the review of courses and curricula development.

The seminar participants discussed aims andlearning outcomes of the courses, highlighted priorities for modules, electives and topicsas well as dedabted research projecttopics for the students at the BALTDEFCOL. The further development of Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) system and blended methods in support of educational activities was also briefly covered during the seminar.

In order to provide external validation of the courses and to implement standards of educational quality assurance, the BALTDEFCOL hascompleted the JCGSC graduates’ and their superiors’ questionnaires (Academic Year 2015-2016, 2016-2017). Questionnaires’ results were presented and elaborated during the seminar and summary report was distributed to the main stakeholders of the BALTDEFCOL.

ERS is a biennial event. The first ERS took place in 2016 in Vilnius and the next one is scheduled to take place in two years.