The Ministry of Education does not share the view that the amendment of the teaching staff law threatens the existence of pedagogical faculties. The law which came into force on November 1st allows technical, agriculture, or art colleges to offer qualified training for teachers too.
This made deans of pedagogical faculties unhappy as they believe that it actually created the conditions for the extinction of their schools. In a protest letter sent to the Minister of Education Dušan Čaplovič, Speaker of Parliament Pavol Paška, Chairman of the Accreditation Commission Lubor Fiser and President of the Slovak Rectors' Conference Libor Vozár, the deans expressed their concerns that such a measure will lead to a lower quality of teachers and a deprofessionalisation of the employees within the education system with dire consequences for future generations.
The Education Ministry however disagrees, saying that the amendment brings a lot of positive aspects. It creates the legal framework for a transparent system of accreditation as those colleges which want to offer training for teachers will need to ask for special accreditation for the pedagogical courses. It sets conditions on their curriculum too. They include at least 80 % of pedagogical-psychological and socio-scientific based lessons and the need for teachers to complete a minimum of 40 teaching hours under the guidance of qualified teachers in training schools.
