This publication is part of the OECD programme of work on higher education policy and was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union.
The OECD is grateful for the support of Agota Kovács at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) and Veronika Rybánska and Natália Cedzová at the Institute for Strategies and Analysis (ISA) in the Government Office of the Slovak Republic. Together with the OECD team, the DG REFORM and ISA team formed the advisory group for the project “Improving Higher Education in the Slovak Republic”, setting the direction for the project and providing regular advice on the project’s activities and outputs. We are grateful for the ISA team to have hosted a pre-project meeting in Bratislava and then accommodated the switch to fully remote project activities as a result of the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Warm thanks go to the members of the Slovak working group: Josef Jurkovič, Marcel Vysocký and Peter Ondreička from the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport; Renata Hall and Robert Redhammer from the Slovak Accreditation Agency for Higher Education; Pavol Galáš and Jan Tomán from the Institute for Educational Policies; Barbara Pavlíková and Andrea Uhrínová from the Research Agency. Working group members participated in regular project meetings, providing key input on national higher education policy developments and feedback on the OECD’s proposals and written outputs. We are grateful as well for the many stakeholders who shared their time and insights during the project’s interviews and roundtable discussions (a list of participating organisations is included in Annex B), and to the 100 stakeholders who attended the international peer-learning webinar organised by the project team on funding and governance. The stakeholders’ insights and opinions provided the OECD team with important information that contributed to the interpretation of published data and research and to the formulation of recommended policy actions contained in this report.
We are also grateful to the international experts and practitioners who took the time to share their experience with governance and funding reforms with the OECD team and the Slovak stakeholders who participated in the international peer-learning webinar. International experts who contributed to the project include Andreas Zehetner (University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, Austria); Ken Thomasson (Ministry of Higher Education and Science, Denmark); Tomi Halonen, Anita Lehikoinen and Birgitta Vuorinen (Ministry of Education and Culture, Finland); Petri Suomala (Aalto University, Finland), Tim Conlon (Higher Education Authority, Ireland), Ana Costa Freitas (University of Évora, Portugal), António Cunha (University of Minho, Portugal), Pedro Teixeira (University of Porto, Portuga), and Christina Whitfield (State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, United States).
This report was prepared by the OECD’s Higher Education Policy team in the Directorate for Education and Skills with contributions from external experts (Miroslav Stefanik, Slovak Academy of Sciences, independent local expert for the project; Jonathan Medow, Oliver Sheldrick and Aleš Vlk, independent higher education consultants). Patricia Mangeol was the project leader responsible for co-ordinating the review. The authors of this report were: Chapter 1 (Introduction), Patricia Mangeol; Chapter 2 (Higher education in the Slovak Republic), Miroslav Stefanik and Patricia Mangeol, with research assistance from Cléa Frambourt and Chloé Michaud; Chapter 3 (An action plan to improve higher education in the Slovak Republic), Patricia Mangeol with input from Miroslav Stefanik on national data and policies and research assistance from Cléa Frambourt and Chloé Michaud; Annex A (Higher education reforms in Portugal and Finland), Jonathan Medow, Oliver Sheldrick and Patricia Mangeol.
Shizuka Kato led the data review and validation process and provided input on the draft report. Chloé Michaud, Jonathan Medow and Oliver Sheldrick researched and drafted international policy examples. Aleš Vlk provided advice on the project activities and draft report.
The authors also wish to thank colleagues in the OECD for their input and advice, including Luka Boeskens, Tomoya Okubo, Simon Roy and Daniel Sanchez Serra (Directorate for Education and Skills), and Ricardo Espinoza and Laura Reznikova (OECD Centre for Skills).
Thomas Weko, team leader and senior analyst of the OECD Higher Education Policy team, provided analytical guidance and advice throughout the project. Paulo Santiago, Head of the Policy Advice and Implementation Division in the Directorate of Education and Skills and Andreas Schleicher, Director of the Directorate for Education and Skills, reviewed the publication.
Julie Harris edited the report; Cassandra Morley, Stephen Flynn and Cécile Bily provided administrative support to the project. Rachel Linden assisted with the editorial and production processes.
While the report draws on data and analysis from the OECD, Slovak data sources and a range of other published sources, any errors or misinterpretations remain the responsibility of the OECD team.