Employers associated in the National Union of Employers (NUE) have long considered lifelong learning to be one of their key priorities. For this reason, a professional workshop entitled AdultLearning RO-SK: Digital Competences in the Context of Lifelong Learning was organized in November 2023. During the workshop, together with representatives of academia, practitioners and other key partners, they discussed the current challenges in the field of lifelong learning and digitalisation.

The expert stakeholder workshop took place within the framework of an international project co-financed by the European Union (EU) AdultLearningROSK: Challenges from the pandemics: adult learning in Romania and Slovakia at the Alexander Dubček University in Trenčín (TnUAD). One of the key themes was the long-term stagnation of Slovakia in the field of systemic development of lifelong learning and effective development of digital skills. According to data from Eurostat, participation in lifelong learning in Slovakia in 2021 was only 5% for adults aged 25-64. Thus, our country is one of the countries with the lowest participation of adults in further education in the EU. In this context, employers associated in the NUE emphasized that the key in this regard is the definition of the so-called social order, i.e. what society actually expects from the education system (public education) and ensuring its fulfilment. „For a long time, we have been advocating for the adoption and implementation of measures that will ensure that graduates of secondary vocational schools and universities will be prepared for the real needs of the labor market, which today is largely influenced by digitization and technological changes,“ states the 1st vice president of RÚZ, Mário Lelovský. At the same time, employers emphasize that the offer of study programs of individual Slovak schools does not reflect not only the demands of employers, but also the technological progress of of society and current trends. „For example, the supply of training in the areas of cybersecurity, working with big data, deploying and using smart technologies in practice, as well as the training of experts in digital and green business transformation is insufficient, as is the lack of awareness of the need for them. For this reason, in collaboration with partners, we are developing new educational curricula content for the development of digital skills and specialisations in the different sectors and professions explored in the project. These are, for example, the banking, retail and HoReCa sectors“, concludes Lelovský.

NUE and TnUAD in the elaboration of the project outputs are also building on the results of the national project Sector-driven innovations for an efficient labour market. During the workshop, innovations affecting the standards of selected occupations were also presented to the participants, namely the professional knowledge and skills that need to be focused on in the context of digitalization in the further education of employees.