Bratislava, August 27, 2021 - Slovak pupils have had schools closed for almost the longest time in the EU, with the greatest impact on children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, who have had few opportunities for distance education. As many as 128,000 children, more than 18 %, were not learning online. The Ministry of Education has set up activities to help catch up with missed learning among children with insufficient distance learning or those at risk of school failure, such as failing out. One such activity was the project "Smarter together" for 1.5 mil. EUR or support for summer schools for more than 1 mil. EUR. These activities are beneficial, so the efforts and resources spent for this purpose may be reimbursed many times in the future. However, SAO analysts also identify space for increasing their scope and targeting.

The analytical unit has been operating at the SAO since 2016. In recent months, it has undergone both external and internal evaluations, which have positively appreciated the improvement in the quality of the department's outputs.

 

The full text of the press release about this issue in Slovak language is available here. Use the Google icon in the top bar for automatic translation.