On individual level, the quality of life is reflected in: job opportunities, quality education and an active life in a safe, healthy and clean environment.
Slovenia has a long tradition of policy-making in education, but the speed of technological progress is constantly changing the context and expectations of society. In 2021 we are talking about digitalization in education, which means both opportunities and many challenges. This outlines new questions about the future of education.
I talked to Mr. Timotej Šooš, Deputy Head of Mission in Bucharest about the education system in Slovenia, the quality of life in Slovenia, but also about new concepts, such as lifelong learning or online learning.
Education in Slovenia, guideline
Oana Voicu: How did Slovenia manage develop this high functional educational system?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: The educational system is one of three or four large systems in a functioning society, like health or pensions. These systems need the most funding and they also need decades of development. In Slovenia we have valued education for years. Even though we have been an independent state only for the past 30 years, education in Slovenia has a much longer history.
We are well-known for excellent preschool care. If I would have to point out one of the educational systems, I would point out preschool. Besides focusing on learning to play, didactic approaches, new methodologies, our kids can enter preschool as young as eleven months old until five and a half or six years of age when they enter the school. Kindergartens are organised around municipalities and they are being provided five meals per day (breakfast, lunch and three snacks in between). The children’s activities include learning through experience and nature activities. Nature is a very important part for us.
We have had some reforms in the educational system. We like to call it the evergreen reform of the educational system. We did not have reforms happening just from time to time, we have constantly looked for what does it mean to be learning, what does it mean changing the way we learn. Slovenia is trying to adopt this mentality of yes knowledge societies. But we are living a so-called TUNA world (turbulent, uncertain, novel, ambiguous) meaning things are changing all the time.
While some knowledge is useful forever, there are newer things that we would need to know to function well as societies, so knowledge is a very static thing and that’s why we like to focus on learning, because learning is dynamic. If you know how to learn, if you are willing to learn, if you love learning then you can gain any knowledge you want because you know how to gain that knowledge. If we just once pour knowledge into you and then we don’t give you the ability to constantly learn you will be like an old computer, outdated very soon.
That’s why in Slovenia, we decided that we would like to focus on learning before we focus on knowledge. Because as soon as we focus on learning, we will be able to have that knowledge anytime we want. This is maybe one perspective.
The learning process
Oana Voicu: And how do you do this?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: One thing is investing in infrastructure, in schools, in well-equipped schools, but the most important thing is investing in teachers. Many times we talk about good education from all kinds of perspectives, we debate so much about what needs to happen for students, but none of this can happen if we do not invest in quality teachers and give them resources. So you have these international studies that are done mostly by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) on the quality of the teachers and they show quite high quality in Slovenian teachers. We educate them, we continuously train them, their whole careers are developed in a way so they continuously need to develop and educate themselves and learn the new approaches.
Trained teacher in digital era
At this point for example, to be critical on our side, two or three years ago we saw a huge deficit in their ability to use digital tools. Many teachers are not teachers of digital tools they just need to use them, but by using them it is enough for the student to gain everything that digital development can offer. So we recognized this gap in their ability to function well and we were just getting ready to fill this gap when the COVID-19 pandemic started like a big storm and it forced us to do it much quicker that then we would have ever done.
So many of those who were learning slowly, taking careful steps into the digital world, now they have been just pushed into it. It was not pleasant for many of them but in result we have now enabled them to do a lot of things online. After the school returned in person, which is healthier and great, what is left over from coronavirus, beyond scars and some negative feelings, it’s also so an excellent ability of many teachers to do things online, to use the digital development for a better education.
After school learning
We also have a lot of informal education in Slovenia. Informal education is mostly developed on a local level. Government gives funding, develops organizations, creates networks, trains the trainers. But many times the funding comes from the private sector, local communities, municipalities or few schools together setting up collaborations with different actors in the society. Informal education in Slovenia means either a foreign language or different skills learning. Now, more and more kids that live in cities want to go back and learn crafting, how to crochet and stuff like this. In rural areas this is not needed because it is natural for them. So you have different needs in different parts of the society, of course. So it’s a lot about informal education.
Recycling in schools
There have been some really good programs in our schools.
Education played a very important part in what we have become today, meaning we are a very green country. We are really obsessed with green, with ecology and with a clean environment, clean streets. In Slovenia, we recycle 98% of municipal waste, meaning at least sort out. You cannot do this only by having a good public company. You need the whole society involved into this. No mayor on its own can fix that without the society’s contribution.
Thirty years ago we started a project called eco-school. Elementary schools received this ecolabel. It didn’t mean that everything they did was eco, because it was impossible in the 90’s. They received a green flag besides the Slovenian and the European flags and every classroom had three trash cans. They started learning to sort and recycle, for example after eating an apple everything goes to a separate place and we make compost. From a very early age, children are thought that you can reuse things, recycle and sort. But this took years, it didn’t happen in one political mandate.
âNo political party, Prime Minister or education minister by itself can say that this has been done during his mandate. Somebody has started it and he next one continued it and so on.
So it’s thirty years of politicians and ministers who sustained this project. None of them cancelled it and then, after the first 10 years, when they assessed the results, they saw that it was successful. People loved it and local communities developed during this time.
In Slovenia, we called it trash police and this means that if you just drop a paper on the street most likely somebody around would warn you about it. This is very natural in our society and this has started with our education system. What I would like to emphasize is that this is not something that you would do with one law or one measure or one magic wand. It’s decades of investment and it happens slow, because when you are working in education, you work with people. We are not machines, we need time to learn.
New challenges – the digital education
There are still many things that we would like to do. There were schools in rural areas didn’t have good access to museums or cultural institutions. But the digital education now brings you to the point where you can take your students to Versailles online. Ten years ago go we would have needed to invest more in buses and take eight year old students for a long drive to be able to pay a visit to a big museum. Right now you can take them twenty times a year to all museums in the world. The digital world solved some important problems, but at the same time it created new problems.
We are now thinking of how much the devices should be allowed in schools, meaning that we want to live with them but how can we make them safe. There are new problems arising. Regarding our higher education we have some institutions that are really great. We invested a lot in natural sciences. We have great engineering, chemistry and physics departments, because of the investments in infrastructure and laboratories. I have seen the Romanian University of Agronomic Studies and they also have excellent labs.
In social sciences you don’t have this initial pressure to buy a 1 million Euro lab, but you also need the same million to invest into research. It doesn’t happen by using a physical microscope, you need to send out people and complete the research and studies, which needs financial resources and time. We gave little less money to social sciences, even though we have great social sciences departments and we have recently seen that we have to invest in this kind of research and social sciences departments more.
Education during COVID-19 pandemic
Oana Voicu: How did Slovenian education dealt with the COVID challenge?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: I wouldn’t say that we have been better prepared dealing with COVID-19 pandemic than Romania. We also had great challenges. After a couple of weeks of online school, our server crashed for one day because it was overburdened. Or some teachers just didn’t know no how to prepare for online classes. Some teachers were putting their videos for the children on YouTube in the morning and they became so popular, so the national TV pick them up. Other teachers were not ready for online classes, they had troubles and the students suffered. I read about the number of Romanian children that didn’t go to school at all during the online school. Looking at this number in Slovenia, it was significantly lower, close to zero. It was not 0, but in comparison, the Romanian figure was quite shocking and alarming. We were not prepared completely and there were also other challenges.
Online teaching
Oana Voicu: The idea of uploading the class videos on YouTube, was a personal choice of certain teachers or was it a planned and organized method?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: One association from Slovenia together with one of the newspapers ran a project last year about being a teacher. It was not like a technical competition, was about showing how great teachers can be teaching online.
It started with few teachers who were just great doing their job. In the beginning they didn’t publish this online, they edited the videos only for their students. But then, their brothers, sisters and parents saw them and they liked and shared the materials to other siblings and friends. It went on and then the children asked the teachers to post it online. It was like a snowball starting rolling and getting bigger and bigger.
Through this project they applied to Google Education Project and they got the award and received some money. This is one tiny thing and it doesn’t mean a lot in terms of money for the education, however it means a lot in terms of motivation.
There are many times when we want to make the teachers do things through carrots and sticks but sometimes you need just inspiration, encouragement and show them some good examples. Give them freedom and many of them will decide to do it just because they like it and they see how great another teacher did it. Not because you promised them more money, a bigger classroom or you punish them. It is just because you inspire them. I think that with teachers many times they need basics. I’m not advocating for lower salaries. I’m just saying that sometimes they need motivation and encouragement as well.
Access to technology in education
Oana Voicu: What is the level of technology used in classroom activities?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: Some schools in bigger cities were more advanced regarding technology. We had a system in place but it didn’t work at the same level in all areas. Classrooms have been equipped with LED projectors and laptops, but this is just hardware. We can provide teachers with tools, but many times you cannot control how much they use them. How much they really know, it varies. I think it will take more years before we can say that we have a complete digital integration.
Slovenia just pointed a minister for digital transformation in July this year. We created a new government entity, that it’s not a ministry, but a government office for digital transformation and they are dealing with digitalization in different areas. One of the areas is of course education. At the moment they are working on a project that it has not yet been adopted, but it is in an advanced faze to be adopted. Through this project, digital skills and digital education vouchers are being distributed to the population. The idea is that each person in Slovenia would get a certain amount of money, like a voucher of €100, that could only be used for education in digital skills. That means you can go and learn coding, you can go and learn JavaScript, if you’re older you can go and learn how to use a smartphone. It will be a nationwide project of giving every citizen some amount of cash for digital skills education. Now we are talking about specific things, but the general idea is to give more money to people that are under 18 or over 65. Those under 18 need digital education and those over 65 need it as well.
E-government
If we want to use the E-government, if we want to use the digital services as a government we need to also make sure citizens know how to use them. Those who are retired have less digital skills and we have to invest more money into this. People from 18 to 65 are the active population and they have more opportunities at work to learn digital skills.
This would be another national initiative focusing on learning and education. There will be a lot of options all across the country and everyone would be able to choose whatever they prefer or need and use that money given by the government to improve their digital skills. This program is now in the initiation faze and it will roll out in 2022.
It’s a new initiative right now, analysis are being done and it is new for us as well. You know there might be a lot of challenges with the implementation. For example, we were in Moldova last week with a deputy minister of digitalization. There is a great facility in Chișinău, called Tekwill. It is a technology hub where they train students from 3 years of age, all sorts of skills and robotics. It’s also a co-working space. It’s also an acceleration program and great institution. Visiting Tekwill, we started thinking and asking ourselves whether there would be enough training providers available for implementing the voucher program in Slovenia. So maybe we do not have enough providers at this moment for the program. As we run this program we will face some challenges but we will solve them. Most probably it will also boost training offers from the market.
Public and private education in Slovenia
Oana Voicu: What is the ratio between private and public involvement in the education system?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: The private education system is less than 10% in elementary and secondary education. The percentage is higher in preschool education, just because in the past when we had larger generations of children some students just couldn’t enrol into the public system because there was not enough space, so they had to create private ones. There are a few kindergartens in bigger cities that teach special methods like Montessori kindergarten, for example. But in elementary school and high school the percentage of private education is lower. We have several Catholic private high schools, and then for the elementary school we have a few private schools like Catholic or Montessori elementary school.
In higher education we recently started developing more private education institutions so the percentage here is higher, but still I wouldn’t say that it’s more than 20%. We have a very good functioning free public education system, so there is no need for private institutions. There might be by niches you know, like physiotherapy or executive management, for example. But even for this, in Slovenia, we have the University of Ljubljana that has the Faculty of Economics. They rank around top 100 business schools in the world and they are running some excellent executive management programs. You need to pay for them, because they are short-term, specialised courses. We also have a private school that is one of the best business schools in Europe, it’s IEDC Bled School of Management. So we have some private higher education institutions, but the percentage is low.
We had many political discussions on how to finance a private education institution when the education is mandatory. It is still ongoing and we also had a referendum on this issue. But we’re working on it and the situation changes from here to year. It is something new for us at this point.
Private sector involvement in education
Oana Voicu: Donations for schools, is the private sector involved in education? Are there collaborations between companies sector and the education system?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: Twenty years ago go we went from an 8-year elementary school to 9-year elementary school. This was a big reform. Now our elementary school is divided in 3 equal parts: from the 1st grade to the 3rd, 4th to 6th and from 7th to 9th grade. For the first three years the children have the same teacher, later they have more teachers and for the last 3 years, children even have some elective subjects. We would like to add more digital classes or bring sustainable development perspectives into more classes. This is an ongoing debate and it is continuously happening.
The private sector is involved in higher education either by donations and sometimes companies are part of the curriculum for practice modules. For example, you have a business school and you would like your students to implement a business plan and you work with companies and they go to a real company and work on a real issue.
We have a vocational system that we used to be like a dual educational system and we’re going back to this dual system, meaning half of the school year the students spend it in classroom and the other half of the year they have practice modules, for example in car repair shops if they want to became auto mechanics or in restaurants if they want to became chefs. This system means that companies to work together with the educational system and they get involved.
There are also some collaborations between research institutions and higher education institutions. We bring less companies into elementary schools, in terms of business perspective. It can take the form of a local collaboration though, for example a local company decides to donate a playground to a local school or a company that works with food and they decide to provide the school with free bio apples for one year.
The structure of the educational system in Slovenia
Oana Voicu: How does the vocational educational function in Slovenia?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: The vocational education system in Slovenia is quite developed and we see more and more a need for it. It has almost disappeared at one point, because all the student at the time wanted to go to what we call gymnasium.
In Slovenia we have kindergarten, then you have elementary school from 1st grade to the 9th grade, which is followed by high school. In high school you have three options: 3-year vocational studies, 4-year vocational school or 4-year gymnasium (gymnasium is the general education that takes you towards university). In the 3-year vocational school you would get trained for a specific job (auto-mechanic, hairdresser,…), but you won’t be able to enroll in higher education afterwards. Following the 4-year vocational education you could go to university but you need to take some extra exams. If you choose gymnasium, at the end of the 4-year study period you would have to take a set of exams 5 exams (Slovenian, math, a foreign language, and two more subjects of your choosing). From 5 classes you can get 34 points (the maximum number of points you can get). These points determine your ability to go to university. At the end of the vocational 4-year training the student has two options: an easier exam and then starts working or the equivalent exam for the gymnasium and then has the opportunity to go to university.
For the university studies (we had Bologna reform), there are two options: 3 years for bachelor’s degree followed by two years for master’s degree or 4 + 1. After the the master degree then the student can enroll in PhD studies.
So this vocational 3-year was disappearing and now slowly we are beginning to expand it. We started to have professionals that were self-trained and in many areas this meant lower quality, so we are trying to encourage this 3-year vocational system. In this area of 3 and 4-year vocational training, a lot of private schools are starting to emerge. Some people might be 50 years old and need to reskill, from being a crook to be an auto-mechanic. Some of them use private companies to do this in the evening.
We also have a few very successful private schools who are also international education institutions. One of these is in our second biggest city in Slovenia, Maribor. It’s called Academia and they have students from all across the world, they also have double accreditations, so if you finish that school you get a degree in Slovenia which is also valid in UK. So we have new things on the market.
Vocational training is expensive for students from the European Union. As EU citizens you can join the public education almost for free like Slovenians, private institutions are just private institutions and students need to pay. We do offer some scholarships for some countries like Afghanistan, within programs for development cooperation. For EU students there is Erasmus program, which works quite well.
Continuous learning
Oana Voicu: What is your opinion on the future of education?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: I think that a part of the education will remain in schools, but there is a part of education that will leave the school. What I mean is that learning for life should continue throughout all our life. All of us, even those who have left the education system, we need to continue to learn, relearn and reskill and rethink everything we do more and more.
I think the future of education will be less centralised and less organised. Formal education will remain, because there are areas where it would still be needed, like medicine. But there will be certain jobs where companies would hire regardless of conventional degrees, just on skills and abilities to do the job. I think this is what is starting to happen, because the future of work is connected to the future of education.
International students in Slovenia
Oana Voicu: Why would a foreign student choose to study in Slovenia?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: I think there are several reasons. Besides the educational reasons, one should choose Slovenia because of the nature. If you study in Ljubljana, you would be 30 minutes away from ski resorts or 45 minutes from the coast. In Maribor you can take the city bus and 10 minutes later you are already in gondola for skiing. The quality of life if is quite high and the nature is also great. You can get good quality food for a decent amount of money. So the living perspective is a good one in Slovenia.
Regarding the education in Slovenia, there are many opportunities to be part of educational projects and work in teams, as the universities are well connected all across the world and the collaborations with other foreign universities are very dynamic. In some areas Slovenian universities are top 5 in the world, in other areas they rank among the first 100.
Higher education in Slovenia
Oana Voicu: Which are the areas in which Slovenian higher education excel?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: Computer engineering, artificial intelligence and deep structured learning are some of the technical areas where Slovenian universities are very good. Also our Chemistry and Biology Institutes are excellent. We also have a great department for languages, namely the Indo-European and Slavic languages department. The Ljubljana Business School is very innovative, they have a fine list of master programs on sustainable development leadership. There is a big team of professors focusing on organizations psychology and some other areas that are very important for the future of learning and the future of society.
Slovenian for foreign students
Oana Voicu: What are the options for applicants who do not know Slovenian?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: If you know Slovenian you have more options, but students who don’t speak it, have the options to take most of their classes in English. We are expanding in this area as well.
Oana Voicu: Is Slovenian tough to learn?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: It depends on your background, where you are coming from. For some it’s easy, but it can be hard for others. The Slovenian grammar has a lot of specificities and it can be hard for a foreigner.
Oana Voicu: What would be the average time to learn Slovenian?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: I would say that maybe a year would be a suitable period. Romanian students have the chance to start studying Slovenian here in Romania at the University of Bucharest, where we have a lector for Slovenian language teaching. We have recently posted on our FaceBook page information on this topic, for those who are interested in starting learning Slovenian.
Oana Voicu: What about entry examinations for foreign students?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: In some areas students need to take exams if they want to enrol, mainly for specialised studies, like medicine or law.
Oana Voicu: What can students do with a diploma?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: For students from EU there is no problem, they have all the rights under the free flow of workforce. Students from outside EU, after graduating, they can apply for a job, but the companies that hire them have to make the papers and apply for working or residency permit or visa. It is a bit of a bureaucratic process. Slovenia welcomes many great researchers from all across the world. As long as there is a company who wants their skills and who wants to work with them, then it is completely possible.
Tuition fees in Slovenia
Oana Voicu:What are tuition fees and costs of living in Slovenia compared to other countries?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: Tuition is less than in other European countries, students also have the possibility to study for free. Living in Ljubljana is expensive, but other areas are quite affordable and cheap. The most expensive thing in Ljubljana is rent. A studio in Ljubljana starts from €500/month, so the rent can be a financial burden. Rent in Ljubljana can be higher than in Berlin. Transport is free for students in Ljubljana and Maribor, our two biggest cities. The students also receive coupons and they can get one meal per day for free. This coupon is worth maybe 5-6 Euros and restaurants (and there are hundreds of restaurants enrolled in this program) are obliged to offer you soup, a main dish, a salad or fruit and a bottle of water or juice. Even McDonald’s offers student packages in exchange for coupons.
Leisure time in Slovenia
Oana Voicu: How can students spend their leisure time in Slovenia?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: There are many options: skiing, biking, canoeing, kayaking, there are a lot of public facilities for sports, everything from skate parks to basketball courts, student facilities where you can play soccer or tennis. We have great libraries, great associations where you can go dancing, you can go hiking in the heels, there are many social clubs, computing or learning foreign language groups, these options are accessible all across the country.
Slovenians love to play sports, it’s part of our societal DNA, not necessarily a part of education. We like outdoor activities, even in rural areas you can go and play soccer on a field. In rural areas every little village has its own soccer field and they are really taking really good care of it.
We have a very active population and it could be for this reason that we are healthier. We have lowered the number of smoking and drinking people. We might have a diet that contains too many fats, but otherwise we have a quite healthy population.
Public health education programs
Oana Voicu: Do you have public health education programs?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: Actually we have many educational programs regarding health. We have one about moving, another about healthy eating or cancer prevention programs, cancer screening programs. The life expectancy is longer every year for Slovenians, but the health age is stagnating. Healthy life years is a number that tells you until what age people in a society live without a chronic disease. For Slovenians it is 58 years old and it is a low number compared to other nations. The Swedish live healthy until they’re 68, this means 10 more years without a chronic disease. The quality of life is lower after this age, it costs more and it has a big impact on finances.
So we are working on healthy life age. It is not just a problem of the education. We didn’t treat mental health for a long time in the past and the mental health subsequently became a physical health issue. Many of the countries that didn’t focus on mental health have this problem, like Slovenia. Now we have a new strategy and we are more aware of the mental health problems. So if you fix the mental health then you will also be able to fix this healthy age. We are doing a lot for nature and healthy food, but the area that is pushing the healthy age now is mental health, because we took it for granted for many years.
Future of education, public speaking
Oana Voicu: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Mr. Timotej Šooš: I think an interesting direction to focus is on PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies), which assesses the skills of adults in a society. Slovenia it has done it only once or twice because it is expensive (almost 3M Euros). It is a very useful study to understand your society.
And another interesting direction in education would be public speaking. Many young people have amazing ideas, but they’re just lacking the ability to put their ideas into words and communicate their ideas. Teaching them how to perform and speak in public are very important steps in education. Rhetoric is one of the three main areas of classical education, but it has disappeared for the curriculum in most of the European schools. This is not present in any of our education systems as a separate subject. On the other side, American students are doing really well, everyone is trained in public speaking and they develop great communication skills. Many schools just recently noticed this issue, we do not have this as a curriculum yet, but it is something that we need to bring back. I think it is important to teach the young people how to put their ideas into words, it is one of the best skills and our generation is still missing it.