The Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sports is one step closer to achieve an "education for everyone": The adoption of the Action Plan for the Strategy of Lifelong Learning and Counselling for the years 2022 – 2024 by the government cabinet succeeded in bringing this goal set in the field of lifelong learning closer together.

The action plan aims at addressing 45 selected measures (out of a total of 51) contained in the national strategy. The goal is to ensure to all citizens a lifelong access to educational opportunities, to develop their skills and competences at every stage of life, observing individual needs so that everyone can fulfil their potential in personal, work and civic life.

One critical tool was the introduction of an individual educational account to support citizens in further education (retraining), with the purpose to increase the participation of adults in education and offer inclusive opportunities for citizens with low skills and/or lower levels of education.  This scheme will have a EU funding of 200 euros per account created.  Within this budget, the applicant can choose a training (or retraining course) according to his/her own needs. 

Included in the package is further support for dual education, specifically, aiming at increasing the attractiveness and quality of vocational education and training through the so-called supra-corporate training centres which should undergo pilot verification by 2024.  Supra-corporate training centres can easily be imagined as a two-level centre – the first allows entry into dual education for small and medium-sized enterprises and the self-employed which provides students with the opportunity for a practical part of education. At the second level, it provides lifelong learning in the sector for staff, vocational teachers, masters of vocational training and chief instructors of training and retraining for jobseekers and much more. 

Another measure is the so-called secondary education. It is about creating an educational programme to obtain lower secondary education and implementing a lower secondary vocational education programme with an integral part of completing primary school. In practice, this means that anyone who, for whatever reason, could not finish primary school can now rectify it.

The specific steps of this measure include the updating of state educational programmes for vocational education and training, the expansion of the offer of education of pedagogical staff (monitoring and tutoring programme) or the introduction of educational programmes of innovative education of pedagogical staff.

With these and other measures, the Ministry of Education in the field of lifelong learning manages to reflect on the rapidly changing demands of the labor market to which adults are often unable to respond. Together with other departments we aim to eliminate these shortcomings and thus offer the possibility of employment with a quality education for everyone.

More information:  https://www.minedu.sk/dalsi-krok-k-dosiahnutiu-ciela-vzdelavanie-pre-kazdeho/

Source:  Eurydice Unit Slovakia