Young people on the labour market Lucia Paulínková, Youth platform of NKOS Kick off meeting Bratislava

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Slovak Education System School types in Slovakia State schools Schools owned by church Private schools 3

Slovak Education System School levels in Slovakia Pre-school education Basic, primary education: Basic first stage and Basic second stage Secondary education General secondary education, Grammar schools, Specialized secondary education, Vocational schools Apprentice training centres Conservatories Higher education Higher education institutions are legal entities. They include public higher education institutions, state higher education institutions and private higher education institutions. 4

My university 5

Factors influencing labour supply (qualification of young people) in 1990´s – increase of students in tertiary education with the aim of postponing their enter to the labour market, inflow of students into general secondary education (lack of qualified manual workers), universities compete for students, higher ratio of students in humanities, lack of professors at the universities – restrictions of their capacity, problems with quality of education (lack of finance; some universities introduced tuition fees), in 2013 for the first time (in comparison with 2012) the number of students enrolled in universities decreased. 6

Employability 7

Young people’s unemployment rate in Slovakia reaches 34 %, the average unemployment rate within the EU is 15.4 %. Annually, the Slovak Republic spends 1% of its GDP to decrease the unemployment rate, whereas the EU spends much higher financial amounts in order to mitigate these factors. The institutional support for unemployed young people is insufficient in Slovakia and only few forms of support exist, which would help them cope with entering the labour market. 8

Participation 9

Young people’s participation in public affairs and societal life does not include only their right to vote and to be voted, but also activism in leisure time. Its assumption is young people’s right to be heard and to take part in making decisions about things that affect them. If we want young people to have courage and competences to take such a position, it is necessary to prepare them for it. 10

Non-formal education and youth work 11 Our meeting in Krakow 2014

Non-formal education and youth work Non-formal education within youth work has a great potential to assist in solving young people’s unemployment. Either through creating the programmes that would work with groups of unemployed young people in a way, which takes into consideration their needs and life-situation (in a form of various national voluntary services) or the programmes, which would work with studying young people in order to prevent their unemployment. However, there is no necessary infrastructure to develop this potential. 12

Conference in Tallin 2013 EZA – Youth platform 13

Conclusion In Slovakia, we would like to create conditions, so that young people could use the potential of all providers of formal and non-formal education as well as opportunities for spontaneous learning to acquire competences needed for their successful application in life. 14

Thank you. 15