32 Education sector analysis shows that the involvement in all levels of education is high, but a disproportion remains in higher education among students of social sciences, engineering and natural sciences. This can lead to discrepancies between skills of new workforce and needs of labour market. The quality of higher education quality is insufficient in individual study programmes and fields of study. It should be noted that the number of newly trained specialists is determined by the sum of bachelors and engineers, because master’s and doctoral studies only continues the previously acquired education, and education level of technicians (college) allows performing rather simple ICT activities. In 2012, the number of newly trained specialists is only 688 professionals (653 professionals with a bachelor’s degree and 35 engineers) that do not satisfy economic demand. Table 3 shows that the universities in Latvia have reached their maximum capacity regarding the number of prepared professionals, which has been practically unchanged from 2004. This is not due to the lack of state-funded study places, but due to insufficient number of school graduates who are interested to acquire ICT profession and inadequacy of school graduate background level for acquisition of an ICT profession. Table 3 Training of ICT Professionals in Latvia Year/Acquired Degree 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 22 38 68 150 178 220 247 Bachelors 511 501 578 690 585 612 653 Engineers 100 156 148 103 38 51 35 98 183 373 311 311 287 295 0 2 6 10 11 4 21 731 880 1173 1264 1123 1174 1251 Technicians Masters Doctorates In total Lack of ICT professionals is a delaying factor for the growth of the ICT sector, improvement of international competitiveness, improvement of export capacity, and attraction of foreign investors. Taking into account salary differences and lack of ICT professionals in the EU Member States compared to developed economies (Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom, etc.), it must be acknowledged that additional risks exists for local ICT companies regarding investments in training and certification of their employees. On the one hand, Latvian ICT companies risk losing their employee education investments if the trained employee moves to another EU Member State. On the other hand, by reducing these investments, there is a risk to lose competitiveness. It is important to continue the training of the employees of ICT companies in order to promote industry growth and competitiveness improvement. Supported training of information_society_development_guidelines_2014_2020.docx; Information Society Development Guidelines 2014-2020