We need action, teachers’ representatives say

The Education Ministry has introduced the basic points of long-awaited reform, but critics are pointing to empty promises and the postponement of solutions.

Education Minister Martina LubyováEducation Minister Martina Lubyová (Source: TASR)

When Peter Plavčan took over the Education Ministry after the 2016 general election, he promised to prepare the largest education reform in the last 25 years. Despite completing the Learning Slovakia document before resigning from the post in August 2017, his successor Martina Lubyová called it unfeasible and ordered its rewriting.

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

She introduced a new document, entitled the National Programme of Pedagogy and Education Development, on May 25, but it resulted in disappointment from the representatives of teachers and observers. The plan contains only basic goals, with Lubyová promising to specify steps later. The government approved the document at its June 6 session.

SkryťTurn off ads

“It’s a missed opportunity,” Vladimír Crmoman, president of the Slovak Chamber of Teachers, commented on the presented document.

Read also: Education Ministry has made little progress Read more 

While they were waiting for specific solutions to change the current situation in education, the minister introduced another philosophy without concrete actions, he added. Another problem is that most of the proposals are expected to take effect only during the rule of the new government, created after the 2020 general election.

Other initiatives have also criticised the plan and announced a protest for June 18 in front of the Education Ministry.

“The ministry has only empty promises, feigned development plans, unusable Finnish models, working groups and invalid projects with zero effect,” the organisers, the Initiative of Slovak Teachers and Nie Je Nám To Jedno (We Do Care), wrote on a Facebook page.

SkryťTurn off ads

With the protest, they want to remind the ministry of the need to solve problems and not postpone and try to sweep them under the carpet.

“We are protesting because it’s never too late for education and science to change,” they added.

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

News digest: Don't forget- clocks go forward on Sunday

More money from Brussels, US helicopters for Slovakia, and Bratislava airport's warning against fake websites.


6 h
Filip Toška holding chard in the hydroponic Hausnatura farm.

How a Mayan doomsday prophecy took a Slovak to hi-tech agriculture

Hydroponic farm run out of former telephone exchange.


9. mar
A Lutheran priest outside the Lutheran High School in Tisovec in 2007.

US teachers not rushing to teach English in Slovakia due to war

Dozens of Americans taught Slovak students in Tisovec in the past, but the local school is now struggling to find teachers from overseas.


21. mar
PM Eduard Heger announces his new political party, Demokrati, on March 7, 2023.

With his new party, Slovak PM embarks on a mission to unify

After two years as premier of an OĽaNO-led government, Eduard Heger is leaving the populist movement of Igor Matovič and hopes to establish a new political culture in Slovakia.


20. mar
SkryťClose ad