Selected legal aspects of online adult education

Abstract

Covid-19 has had a large influence on the educational system. Since March 2020, the majority of teaching and learning has taken place online, including in the adult education sector. Adult education entities all around the world were forced to transition to online teaching mode, culminating in the adult education industry's unprecedented rapid digitisation. At the same time, the speedy transformation to the online mode has raised various legal issues, particularly regarding compliance with the national legal framework. The thesis's aim is to analyse the legal issues of online adult education in Latvia and based on that make recommendations to adult education entities in Latvia that offer online teaching and learning process. In order to achieve the aim, the author has formulated the following objectives: to review the framework of online adult education, to analyse the general compliance of online adult education with the legal framework, to examine legal issues arising from data protection and to research legal issues arising from intellectual property. As a result, the author concluded that the adult online teaching and learning process is not fully incorporated in the Education Law of the Republic of Latvia. In addition, there are identified various legal issues regarding personal data protection during recording online lectures and copyright issues, since the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market has not been fully enacted into the national legislation of Latvia.