EU Commissioner for Multilingualism Leonardo Orban said that foreign-language teaching in Slovakia is at a good level, Education Minister Ján Mikolaj told the TASR newswire after their meeting on October 23.
Mikolaj told Orban about Slovak education reforms, the structure of foreign-language teaching and the use of EU funds. Orban said that the situation in Slovakia in foreign-language teaching was favourable, but stressed that the country's universities should devote more time to the education of future EU interpreters and translators. He also said that all foreign languages were important, not only English.
The two representatives didn't discuss the controversial Homeland Studies textbooks for Hungarian-language schools in Slovakia that the ethnic-Hungarian SMK party alleges discriminate against its minority. Orban began his official visit to Slovakia on October 23, and will leave the next day. As well as Mikolaj, he has already met Deputy Prime Minister Dušan Čaplovič and Foreign Affairs Minister Ján Kubiš. He also plans to meet regional journalists at a seminar in Svätý Jur (Bratislava region) and students at Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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