Horecky: Legislative Changes by Drucker a Parody of Reform and Fairness

Bratislava, 17 January (TASR) – Legislative changes introduced by Education Minister Tomas Drucker (Voice-SD) are a parody of reform and fairness, with thousands of teachers and parents complaining, former education minister and MP Jan Horecky (KDH) stated at a press conference on Tuesday. Horecky criticised the ePrihlaska system, the obligation to publish minutes from teacher meetings and the growing administrative burden for schools. The new electronic ePrihlaska system was meant to simplify the admissions process, but according to Horecky it has instead brought stress and uncertainty, burdened schools and weakened the position of parents and students. "Many schools have until now submitted applications electronically through EduPage, which all parents and teachers know and schools use, and which includes a module for entrance exams and admissions," Horecky said, adding that building a parallel system is confusing and uneconomical. Horecky also claimed the system does not work properly. "From the school information system you have to export grades into this new system, which serves only for admissions, and errors occur during the export," he said. The former minister criticised the fact that parents must check whether grades are correct and amend them, after which elementary school teachers must verify them again. He also said that when editing applications, the order of schools selected according to a child's priorities randomly changed for some parents. In his view, parents therefore have no certainty that the uploaded application reflects what they believe to be valid. He also pointed to the unavailability of categories for students with disabilities and those with special educational needs. Horecky described the mandatory publication of minutes from teacher meetings as another nonsensical change. In his view, this hinders genuine solutions, increases administrative work and complicates communication and understanding. In addition, he took objection to what he sees as increasing bureaucracy, warning that schools are unable to respond to the large number of changes. He added that a further problem is the digital transformation strategy that each school must adopt. The changes, he said, also include numerous formalities that will result in unproductive extra work. mf