Slovak schools fight for IT students

But the problem might be that there will not be enough teachers to prepare the next generation of IT experts.

More than 300,000 mostly young Slovaks have left the country in the past 15 years.   More than 300,000 mostly young Slovaks have left the country in the past 15 years. (Source: TASR)

The drop in competitiveness and departure of foreign investors are only some of the effects the lack of IT experts might have on Slovakia’s economy.

The representatives of IT companies agree that the lack of skilled IT specialists already impact companies in a negative way. The 2016 Eurostat data suggests that more than half of Slovak companies struggle to fill the vacancies with IT specialists, such as programmers, data scientists and security experts, said Karol Kniewald, corporate affairs manager at Cisco.

SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement
SkryťTurn off ads
Article continues after video advertisement

SkryťTurn off ads

“Unfortunately, this state cannot be changed in the near future, despite the efforts of universities,” Ján Ružarovský, CEO of SAP Labs Slovakia, told The Slovak Spectator.

Czech schools are popular

Slovakia loses its young talented people already at a young age, when deciding about their future school. The country reports the highest number of students leaving to study abroad in the European Union, says Mário Lelovský of the IT Association of Slovakia (ITAS). A popular destination is the Czech Republic.

“I decided to study in the Czech Republic since it offered higher quality education,” Peter Majerčík, an IT programming student at Masaryk University in Brno, told The Slovak Spectator.

Read also: Educating the future IT generation Read more 

28-year-old Miroslav Šoltés, a graduate of the Information Technology Faculty of the Brno University of Technology, was also persuaded by the school’s quality and its placement in the ranking of the 500 best schools in the world.

SkryťTurn off ads

31-year-old Marek Chrenko, a graduate from Masaryk University in Brno, appreciates the professionalism of the teachers, who were open to discussion with students, and the technical equipment of his school. Moreover, the entire student agenda can be done on the internet.

“The school gave us more than a summary of information; it helped us open our minds in a more analytical direction,” he added.

The problem is not the fact that Slovaks study at schools abroad, but that they do not return after graduating, according to Ružarovský.

The rest of this article is premium content at Spectator.sk
Subscribe now for full access

I already have subscription - Sign in

Subscription provides you with:
  • Immediate access to all locked articles (premium content) on Spectator.sk
  • Special weekly news summary + an audio recording with a weekly news summary to listen to at your convenience (received on a weekly basis directly to your e-mail)
  • PDF version of the latest issue of our newspaper, The Slovak Spectator, emailed directly to you
  • Access to all premium content on Sme.sk and Korzar.sk

Top stories

The New Stations of the Cross combine old and new.

New Stations of the Cross to combine surviving remains and contemporary architecture.


Píšem or pišám?

"Do ľava," (to the left) I yelled, "Nie, do prava" (no, to the right), I gasped. "Dolšie," I screamed. "Nie, nie, horšie..." My Slovak girlfriend collapsed in laughter. Was it something I said?


Matthew J. Reynolds
Czech biochemist Jan Konvalinka.

Jan Konvalinka was expecting a pandemic before Covid-19 came along.


SkryťClose ad