ABSTRACT
Due to rapid changes in socioeconomic life influenced by the development of new technologies, education and science are becoming even more significant in the world. Excellent education and science are essential to guarantee the transformation of the national economies recovering from the Covid-19 crisis, by all means ensuring wellbeing as a basic element of quality of life nowadays and in the future. It is evident that the success of digital transformation does not rely only on technology, but also on the people, particularly their level of education and skills. This chapter very briefly discusses the changes in higher education since Latvia became an independent state in 1991 and the main policies now serving as guidelines for the development of smart education in Latvia. Close attention is devoted to the quality assurance of digitalization in higher educational institutions (HEI) in order to ensure the competence of the new graduates in different fields of economy and social life. The chapter presents a SWOT analysis of the HE institutions performance based on research on digitalization in 2020 and "lessons” learnt from the Covid-19 period. As a result, online teaching and learning has become a core part of the educational system that has to be developed not only during a pandemic crisis, but in everyday life. Significant attention is paid to the following aspects such as: development of people's competences, development of technologies and learning environments and improvement of services by promoting quality in digitalization. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.