ANNUAL REPORT OF 2019 ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SEIMAS OMBUDSMEN’S OFFICE OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA to human rights matters, i.e. the human rights issues are considered as a separate subject of studies, various topics relating to the protection of human rights are discussed and the sufficient number of hours is devoted for this purpose. It should be noted that institutions providing nursing programmes pay less attention to human rights: there is no separate subject devoted for the human rights matters, only a few hours are dedicated for general subjects on human rights, the individual human rights topics such as the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the protection of the rights of persons with disabilities, the recognition of violence and bullying, the management of the cases of violence are not addressed during lectures taught subjects. Meanwhile, training establishments implementing programmes for the vocational training and improvement of professional competence of social individual assistance care staff discuss a wide range of significant human rights issues and allocate sufficient hours for this purpose. 18 nursing studies supplementing by the requirement that graduates who have completed nursing studies have knowledge and competences in the field of ensurance of human rights. The Minister for Social Security and Labour was additionally recommended to take measures to ensure that the criterion of knowledge and competence in the field of ensuring human rights is included in the list of criteria for assessing the needs of the social worker for improving professional competence. Having regard to the circumstances established during the investigation, the Seimas Ombudsman recommended to the Minister of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Lithuania, the Minister of Health of the Republic of Lithuania and the Minister of Social Security and Labour of the Republic of Lithuania to take measures to ensure that all persons who have completed vocational training programmes in the social services and health care sectors, who will be able to work in providing social services, have knowledge and competences in the sphere of ensuring human rights. In addition, the Seimas Ombudsman recommended to the Director of the Department for Supervision of Social Services to ensure that training institutions carrying out vocational training and professional qualification improvement programmes for individual care staff include all human rights topics specified in the report as mandatory in the training process, allocating an appropriate number of academic hours, and in future initiate the development of new professional competence development programmes and/or integrate the subject of human rights and freedoms into the descriptions of existing professional competence improvement programmes; to the Director of the Centre for Quality Assessment in Higher Education – to take measures to ensure that the evaluation of the programmes of the field of social work and nursing studies, inter alia, also covers the analysis whether they include the aim that all graduates who have completed the studies under these programmes have knowledge and competences in the field of human rights; to educational institutions carrying out the first level programme of social work – to update their curricula accordingly; and to training institutions carrying out the first level nursing programme – to devote greater attention to the human rights topics. Besides, the Seimas Ombudsman separately recommended to the Minister of Education, Science and Sport to initiate the amendment to the Description of nursing studies on which higher education institutions rely when developing new or improving existing programmes in the field of In regard to the recommendations of the Seimas Ombudsmen, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter also referred to as MESS) noted that on instruction of the Ministry, the recommendations were analysed and are being implemented by the Qualifications EVERYONE COUNTS