The aim of the report is to study the possibilities of vocational education in promoting the sustainable urban development, paying special attention to the situation in Latvia and on the basis of the analysis of good practice examplesoffer recommendations to facilitate the quality of vocational education that would promote the urban development and sustainability.

For research, key questions are: 1) In what ways vocational education can foster urban development and sustainability? 2) What are initiatives of vocational education in Latvia to facilitate sustainable urban development?

Scientific literature indicates (S.M. Wheeler, T. Beatley, 2004, D. Hübner, 2009, A. Fujiwara, J. Zhang, 2005) various factors influencing the sustainability of urban development, e.g. economic development, ecological restoration, employment, progress of technology, social attractiveness of the urban environment, educational level and residents’ environmental attitudes etc.

“These factors interact each other, and show temporally changing cause-effect relationships and impose varying influences on the sustainability at different stages of urban development.” (A. Fujiwara, J. Zhang, 2005, p.4350)

In addition, education, information and debate are seen as the most powerful tools for change.(e.g. G. Becker, 2008/2011)

European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional Policy (2009) guidelines Promoting sustainable urban development in Europe emphasize that nowadays, global development regards sustainability as an explicit goal. Economically dynamic cities are central to future economic growth and continuing reduction in poverty. Cities are the main locations of production, trade, and productivity growth, which provide the basis for rising standards of living.

In this sense, it becomes more and more important how to realize sustainable development at urban level through education.

            According to the vision of the UNO decade “Education for Sustainable Development” (2005 – 2014), i.e., to form the world in which every person has a possibility through education to acquire values, behavior and life style that is necessary for sustainable future and successful social changes, education plays one of the most important roles in promoting sustainable development.

            The demands for employees who are able to adapt to the changing working conditions, to work in non-standard situations, are flexible and are able to perform their work activities competently, show initiative to improve their knowledge and develop professionally is growing due to the rapid urban development and the social economic conditions in Latvia and elsewhere in the world. Thus the authors consider that vocational education plays a special role in preparing the new specialists that will promote the growth of the national economy. Therefore the vocational education should be flexible in order to satisfy the demands of the society.

Becker G. (2008/2011) Urbane Umweltbildung im Kontext einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung. Theoretishe Grundlagen und Schulische Perspektiven. Leske+Budrich Verl. Hübner D. (2009) Strengthened Cities, Growing Regions. Promoting sustainable urban development in Europe urban development in Europe. Achievements and opportunities. European Commission, Directorate-General for Regional Policy. http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy [Electronic resource] [Accessed 12.12.2010.]. Fujiwara A., Zhang J. (2005) Evaluating Sustainability of Urban Development in Developing Countries Incorporating Dynamic Cause-Effect Relationships over Time. Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, Vol. 6, p. 4349-4364 The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) http://www.unesco.org/en/esd/ [Electronic resource] [Accessed 29.06.2009.]. Wheeler S.M., Beatley T. (2004) The Sustainable Urban Development Reader. N.Y., Routledge.