education

According to the adherents of conflict theory, schools reproduce the social order and transmit the ideology of the dominant group. The education system is susceptible to political changes. Every government has its own vision of political history that gets promoted through the school system.

At the end of the 1980s, the countries which freed themselves from Soviet authority faced the challenge of reforming educational policy that had until then rested on communist principles. Now, they had to develop a society open to democracy and capable of establishing and maintaining it. The expected breakthrough, however, has not happened.

Four main challenges still lay ahead of the Bulgarian education system: 1) autonomy; 2) flexibility and choice; 3) involvement; and 4) practical skills. One way to look at these issues is to investigate the income distribution in the country.

The Estonian education system maintained its peculiarity during the Soviet occupation – teaching was in Estonian, the atmosphere in schools derived from progressive ideas and democracy, textbooks were by Estonian authors, and teaching arts, music, and foreign languages were given a great emphasis.

According to the latest research by Aasvee & Minossenko, less than 20 percent of Estonian children move as much as the World Health Organization advises, which is at least one hour a day. A major challenge is to find ways to increase children\'s physical activity.

Tertiary education in the Czech Republic has a been a tradition for more than 600 years. In 1348, Charles University in Prague was founded as one of the oldest universities in Europe. Having an excellent reputation for centuries, the sector has been facing a significant drop in international university rankings.

Most political systems still encourage politicians to promise people to solve the problems at hand with the same tools which created them in the first place: by more spending and more intervention. This, in turn, results in eliminating personal incentives and responsibilities.

In a way, digitization is old hat. E-mails turned 45 on September 30, 2016. In 1997, 4.1m Germans were online; today the figure is 58m. Growing up in today\'s world, it is impossible to imagine being without a smartphone. But not having a landline phone or not owning a car? No problem.

Our Athena++ reform plan was made available to the wider public at the beginning of February 2017, aiming to spark further debate. In the upcoming months, we will be presenting our ideas to government representatives, MPs, political parties, professional associations and the media in Slovakia.

The Lithuanian Free Market Institute was shortlisted among three finalists for this year’s award for its textbook for upper secondary school students Economics in 31 Hours. The Educational Learning Resources Award recognizes excellence in innovation, pedagogical value and practicality of educational resources.