Eugen Jurzyca

EUGEN Jurzyca, Slovakia’s new Education Minister, was born on February 8, 1958 in Bratislava. He studied at the University of Economics in Bratislava and in 1993 had a six-month internship at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and in 1991 – 1992 he studied at the Open University in Bratislava. He completed several courses and trainings organised within the exchange programmes of international institutions such as the World Bank and the OECD.

Jurzyca served at the Anti-Monopoly Office and also as a member of the Bank Council of the National Bank of Slovakia. Beginning in 2000 he worked at the Institute for Economic and Social Reforms (INEKO), which he founded.

He has lectured at various universities and was a member of the Open Society Foundation. He also served as an adviser to several government institutions, such as for President Rudolf Schuster and also to Ivan Mikloš and Iveta Radičová when they held ministerial posts in the 2002 – 2006 government.

In 2005 Jurzyca was awarded the Order of Ludovít Štúr of the second class.

Jurzyca was not a member of any political party until recently. He started collaborating with SDKU as the leader of the party’s team dealing with economic crisis issues in September 2009. After that he resigned as director of INEKO as well as from the council of the Open Society Foundation.

In the 2010 elections he was elected as an MP from the SDKU candidate list and was subsequently chosen by the coalition to serve as education minister.

Eugen Jurzyca is married with two children.

Source: SITA