The state should guarantee  equal access to quality education. Education should be available to everyone, and the education path of each individual should be formed solely by his/her abilities and interests. To mine the potential of each learner, the education system must be capable of addressing any disabilities and eliminating sufficiently early any risk of possible failure. Only then can education actually become an opportunity for each individual, and enable them to lead a successful and meaningful life.

Almost anyone can be admitted to a university today, but access to early childhood education and care programmes is limited

Everyone should have access to early childhood education and care programmes, and these should help all children start on an equal footing when they later commence their schooling. Various research findings confirm that if children participate in these programmes, it has a positive effect on their future learning. However, no attention is placed on programmes for children aged below 3 in Slovakia, and the state cannot guarantee access to pre-primary education even for those who are willing to participate in it. Many children remain in front of the kindergarten gates, as confirmed by the Learning Makes Sense questionnaire survey. Almost 50% of kindergarten principals surveyed stated that demand for places in their school outnumbered vacant capacity in the school year 2017/2018. Introducing  compulsory pre-primary education for children aged 5  and above contributed to the pressure for  capacity increase, although the risk of insufficient capacity remains.

While people have to “fight” for a place in a kindergarten, vacant places at secondary schools and universities significantly exceed the number of potential applicants. In 2018, vacant places at secondary schools exceeded the number of primary school graduates by 15,000.  Vacant places for full-time and part-time studies at universities exceeded the number of secondary school graduates by 20%. An extremely high and still increasing number of secondary school graduates heading for universities abroad also contributes to vacant places at universities. The proportion of university students from Slovakia studying abroad is 17%, while the OECD average is 2%.[1]

Selection of students is spreading at lower education stages, while it is non-existent where it would be legitimate

Upon completing education at primary school, young people should have a wide choice of education paths. In most European countries young people are tracked into various education paths at the age of 14 to 16 years. In Slovakia however, tracking is present at the age of 11. Upon completing year 5 at primary school, some pupils leave for the 8-year grammar school. However, research findings show that early tracking of students does not lead to significant gains for those being tracked into premium education, and causes huge losses for those remaining in the non-premium tracks. The remaining pupils lose positive models and the motivation to work harder, because the school environment deteriorates after the best performing pupils have left.

Selection procedures are applied early, but are not applied later when they would be legitimate. The transition of pupils after year 9 at primary school to secondary schools more closely resembles recruitment than selection. Softening admission criteria is even more apparent in the transition to tertiary education. While in 2005 less than a third of applications was accepted without entrance exams, in 2018 this proportion rose to 61%. The absence of entrance exams probably deters the more ambitious applicants. In the questionnaire survey, more than 80% of students from Slovakia studying at universities abroad claimed that the decision to abolish entrance exams is lowering the quality of universities in Slovakia. Teachers point also to a reduction in the quality of universities, yet in addition they attribute it to the insufficient abilities of students. In the questionnaire survey, almost 70% of teachers ranked the low quality of students among the five factors that worsen the quality of education. However, qualitative data point to the lack of systemic communication between secondary schools and universities in preparing students for their university studies. The criticism directed at the abilities of university applicants is related to teachers’ expectations. With the new millennium, university studies in Slovakia opened up to a broader group of students, but this process did not involve the diversification of universities this necessitated. Most universities continued to offer mostly academically-oriented study programmes.

There are groups of people with no access to higher education stages

The state should guarantee  equal access to quality education, and the education path of each individual should be formed solely by his/her abilities and interests. However, not everyone has access to higher education, with learners with disabilities and social disadvantages facing the most difficulties. Compared to other countries, significantly fewer people go through higher education  than their parents.[2]

To a large extent, this relates to people living in social exclusion. Calculations by the Education Policy Institute and Value for Money Unit show that more than a third of pupils from excluded Roma localities finished their compulsory education without attaining a full basic education,  and fewer than  half continued on further studies in the school year 2017/18.[3] In secondary education, these students attend mostly practical schools and special vocational schools for students with mental disabilities, or they attend mainstream vocational schools. However, they often attend 2-year study programmes offering no professional qualifications, and this significantly decreases their chances of finding a job. The proportion of students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds (SDB) at universities is even lower than at secondary schools. In the school year 2017/18, only 8% of young people aged 19–23 years receiving material benefits attended universities. This proportion is 4 times lower than their total proportion of the population.[4] Less than 1% of Roma have a university degree. Support for students coming from excluded Roma localities is reduced to needs-based scholarships serving to partially eliminate the financial barriers. However, they do not receive support in other important areas, and their families and relatives can only help them to a limited degree, as they themselves lack experience with university studies.

Similarly, the education paths of people with disabilities differ from the majority population. While children with disabilities comprise 11% of all primary school pupils, at secondary schools their proportion drops below 7%. This indicates that a significant proportion of children with disabilities do not continue their studies at secondary schools. This is mainly the case for children with a diagnosed mental disability. The Learning Makes Sense survey findings indicate that transition to secondary school can also pose problems for children diagnosed with autism, multiple disabilities or sensory disabilities. Transition to secondary schools is further complicated by the limited access to career advice. A quarter of special primary schools do not provide it at all. Secondary school choice is thus driven mostly by the openness and accessibility of particular schools to the education of students with disabilities, rather than by their own abilities and interests. Physical barriers in school buildings pose a particular problem, along with the lack of teaching assistants and personal assistants for learners with disabilities, and the inadequate competences of teachers in working with these learners, a shortcoming which is not compensated for by methodological support for teachers. It is alarming that a significant proportion of children with disabilities attend programmes without a school-leaving exam (28%), and similarly to Roma children, this lowers their chances of entering the labour market.

Only a small proportion of students with disabilities continue their studies at a university. In 2018, some 7,000 students with disabilities attended programmes with a school-leaving exam at secondary schools, while only a thousand such students studied at universities. The Learning Makes Sense survey findings indicate that despite partial positive measures at many universities, there are still physical barriers present and they limit access to university education for people with disabilities. Students with sensory disabilities or arm disabilities also face barriers related to IT systems, and have limited access to academic literature and other materials.

Low state support hinders the process of eliminating barriers, because public universities receive only  half of the subsidies requested for students with special needs (SEN). Also, specific support measures for individual groups of students with SEN are not defined. Having such a definition is particularly important, since people serving as SEN support co-ordinators at universities have various backgrounds, do not attend training in this field, and often perform this task beyond the scope of their regular duties and for low financial compensation. Yet their role is extremely important in providing guidance to teachers. There are also shortcomings in training and support for university teachers in teaching SEN designated students.

The education system introduces compensatory measures instead of placing emphasis on prevention

The education system should help equalise opportunities and compensate for disadvantages as early as possible, thus eliminating or significantly reducing the risk of future failure. Currently, it addresses the needs of people at risk too late, and applies compensatory rather than preventive measures. The system contains various costly and not always effective measures which have been introduced due to inadequate prevention at preceding education stages.

An example is the introduction of preparatory classes (“zero classes”) aiming to help children with little or no access to early childhood education and care programmes. While the intention to compensate for disadvantages can be appreciated, available data suggest that learners from the preparatory classes still experience failure later at school. Moreover, the year spent in a preparatory class is included in the period of compulsory education and students who repeated a year at primary school frequently finish their studies before they complete year 9 at school. Consequently, state education policies address this by offering courses to complete education at primary school and they are provided mostly by secondary vocational schools offering 2-year vocational programmes. In the end, these students often finish their education path without achieving any work qualification at all. However, their chances of entering higher education would have been higher if the schools they attended had addressed their learning needs more effectively using a wide range of support measures.

Findings from the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from the Learning Makes Sense project related to education openness, flexibility and permeability are examined in more detail and in the context of other data in the following sections:

At the doors of compulsory education or an (un)sure start

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Entry to compulsory education or an (un)equal start

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Transition to lower secondary education

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Transition to secondary education

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Transition to university education

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Transition from the 1st stage to 2nd stage at universities

Read more (available only in Slovak).