The most noticeable decision of the management of the Ministry of Education after its first year in office is that it did not cancel its original plan to start compulsory pre-school preparation beginning with the school year 2021/2022, according to analyst Juraj Čokyna. Speaking to TASR press agency, the former analyst of the Institute of Education Policy noted that dozens of municipalities are faced with non-existent capacities and vacancies in kindergartens. According to him, the pre-school preparation is a very ambitious plan and he hopes that it will not end with the expulsion of kids younger than five years old from kindergarten in order to make space for those who must attend pre-school preparation.
According to Čokyna, the change made at the head of the State Pedagogical Institute was very important, and the introduction of summer schools was also a positive idea. The biggest change, however, is that the ministry, led by Branislav Gröhling (SaS), has significantly improved its marketing and communication.
The analyst believes that the closure of schools due to the coronavirus epidemic has not been managed properly. "Despite the fact that most schools required clear and binding rules, the ministry usually offered only general recommendations and talk about how each school is different and therefore should have freedom in what they would do and how they would do it.
"It did not take into account the fact that some types of schools need more substantial support in order to be able fully to involve all their students in the learning," stated the analyst, adding that in the first wave alone, an estimated 52,000 children did not attend school at all and an estimated 128,000 children did not learn online. "This is one big chaos that could have been avoided by better management," concluded the analyst.
