Improving education outcomes in the Slovak Republic

Improving education outcomes is vital for achieving convergence with GDP per capita levels in Western European countries and for reducing income inequality. While some education outcomes are favourable, such as the low secondary-school drop-out rate, others have room for improvement: education achievement is below the OECD average and strongly influenced by socio-economic background; Roma
children, who are mainly from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, have particularly poor
achievement; labour-market outcomes are poor for graduates of secondary vocational programmes not
leading to tertiary education; and tertiary attainment is low, albeit rising. Reforms have been made in
recent years or are planned to address many of these weaknesses, but much remains to be done. In
particular, more progress needs to be made in increasing participation in early childhood education and care, reducing stratification in the education system, helping Roma children to integrate into the education
mainstream, and in attracting high quality graduates to teaching, especially in socio-economically
disadvantaged schools. In addition, secondary vocational education not leading to tertiary education needs
to be made more pertinent to labour-market requirements. Tertiary education also needs to be made more
attractive for technical secondary school graduates.