Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.
Skip to main content
European Commission logo

YouthWiki

EACEA National Policies Platform
Slovakia

Slovakia

3. Employment & Entrepreneurship

3.8 Development of entrepreneurship competence

Last update: 28 November 2023
On this page
  1. Policy Framework
  2. Formal learning
  3. Non-formal and informal learning
  4. Educators support in entrepreneurship education

Policy Framework

In the Slovak Republic there is no national strategy directly targeted at entrepreneurial skills development. Nevertheless the theme related to the increase of entrepreneurial literacy is part of the Strategy of the Slovak Republic for youth for the years 2014 – 2020. Entrepreneurial literacy will also be one of the main debates in the coming years.

Formal learning

Junior Achievement Slovensko is an organisation that operates in the field of formal education on the Slovak Republics territory. It implements the following programmes called Applied Economy (Aplikovaná ekonomika)  and Entrepreneurship in the tourist industry  (Podnikanie v cestovnom ruchu), within which students can test their first actual entrepreneurship in a students’ firm. At the time being there are nearly  1 000schools and more than 26 000 students engaged in these programmes.

The vocational subject “Economic exercises/practice at a training firm” is focused on the increase of entrepreneurial skills and is coordinated by Slovak Centre for Training Firms (SCCF – Slovenské centrum cvičných firiem). This centre is a unit of the State Institute for Vocational Education (Štátny inštitútu odborného vzdelávania). The training firm operates as a real firm – it has basic departments of an ordinary actual enterprise. It provides a simulation of activities of departments in an actual firm, whereas students are allowed to make a mistake, which does not have such economic impact as it would have in an actual firm, but its function is solely educational.

The Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic imposes an obligation on schools to incorporate themes of the National Standard of Financial Literacy (Národný štandard finančnej gramotnosti ) into their school educational curricula. Schools can implement a project called More than money (Viac ako peniaze) aimed at financial literacy support, alternatively other projects. A handbook named Financial literacy 1 (Finančná gramotnosť 1) is available and is assigned for first-graders, second-graders, third-graders and fourth-graders at primary schools.

Non-formal and informal learning

Košice IT Valley plays an important role in the development of the IT industry in the Košice. The institution is an initiative of educational institutions, government and leading IT companies. The main activities: motivation of children and youth to study and later to work in Information Technologies and Robotics; improving the quality of IT training programs offered by universities, high and elementary schools and IT businesses, etc.

Education for entrepreneurs in diverse forms is offered also by incubators and co-working spaces (financed mostly by private donors) within their accompanying events (lectures, seminars, webinars and so forth); as example we can mention co-workings such as Connect Co-workingRubixLab in Bratislava, Banka Žilina in Žilina, Eastcubator and Creative Centre Halmiho Dvor (“Halmiho Dvor” = Slovak for Halmi Yard) in Košice. From among incubators, the University technological incubator (Univerzitný technologický inkubátor) in Bratislava can be presented as an examples.

EPIC non-profit organization whose donors are EU funds has been committed to promote social entrepreneurship. Within their projects, they prepared a page with studying materials on social entrepreneurship.

Another organisation that works in the field of non-formal education is Nexteria, mostly by means of its 3-year developing educational programme Leadership Academy, which consists of diverse courses, discussions, projects and networking events. This programme is focused not only on entrepreneurship; however its aim is development of skills, which school-leavers use also in starting their own enterprise/business.

Summation of useful information for commencing entrepreneurs is also provided by Information youth centre, which on its portal sums up basic entry information on entrepreneurship.

Educators support in entrepreneurship education

Ensuring of preparation of teachers, who teach subjects aimed at entrepreneurship education is carried out mainly by the non-profit organisation Junior Achievement Slovensko . It offers to pedagogues/educationists a possibility to get involved in the programmes, which make the educational process playful, interesting and attractive and will bring new opportunities to students as well as to pedagogues/educationists. The programmes are designed for primary and secondary schools. Except for these programmes they offer also a teaching aid – creative cards. Those form a compact set of didactic methods for problem-solving within teamwork.

Simultaneously the Junior Achievement Slovakia intermediates for teachers of primary and secondary schools a possibility of free access to the biggest European database of tools and methods aimed at support of entrepreneurship education.

Another subject in the field of support of educationists/teachers is the Slovak Centre of Training Firms, which in the framework of its assignments implements also continuous education of teachers in training firms.

In 2007 -2008 the Young Entrepreneurs Association of Slovakia initiated a project called Quality at school, success in lifeThe project’s output is a six-textbook set designed for teachers at secondary schools, which serve in pedagogical process for teaching of entrepreneurship-oriented subjects.