COMPULSORY study of the English language will remain in the amendment to the School Act as Slovakia’s parliament decided on February 1 to reject an objection raised by President Ivan Gašparovič.
Gašparovič stated that the amendment gives preference to English at the expense of other languages and noted that a number of foreign ambassadors to Slovakia expressed disagreement with the amendment, the TASR newswire wrote.
Education Minister Eugen Jurzyca responded that not counting the EU member states which use English as an official language, English courses are compulsory in more than half of EU countries.
Ján Mikolaj, Jurzyca’s predecessor as education minister and an MP from the Slovak National Party (SNS), said that no other classes in the current national curriculum are compulsory under the law. He stated that the amendment smacks of politics and populism and added that Slovak schools are not ready to provide high-quality English studies.
