Established in 1940, University of Economics in Bratislava (EUBA) is the leading provider of higher education in the disciplines of Economics and Management in Slovakia. Its main mission centres around offering high-level quality of education in Economics and Management for cca 7,000 students enrolled in Bachelor, Master (Dipl. Ing.) and Ph.D. programmes. The approximate number of teaching and administrative staff is about 1,000 employees altogether. In terms of international cooperation, EUBA has more than 200 partner institutions across and beyond Europe.
The initiator and the main coordinator of this project is the Department of Pedagogy, seated at the Faculty of National Economy, EUBA. It was established in 1961, and since then it has been providing training for teachers of economic subjects at all types of secondary schools. The department primarily focuses on secondary school teachers training, but since 1997 it has also been providing educational development activities for beginner university teachers. The following study programmes are currently being offered: supplementary pedagogical study, extending study for administration and correspondence teachers, pedagogical education of university teachers at EUBA.
During the past decade, EUBA has introduced several pilot initiatives aimed at improving quality of education. These include summer school workshops for Ph.D. students and beginner teachers, seminars for experienced teachers and discussions on relevant topics with the university management and its faculties managements. The university now strives to synthesise the individual initiatives in order to make support for its teachers more systematic, professional and holistic. The Department of Pedagogy has prepared this project to synergise with the experience of other universities.
The Department of Pedagogy, where the key persons of the project are seated, has completed various projects in the area of teachers´ professional development over the past two decades, such as:
- innovation of the system of professional development of economics teachers at secondary schools,
- innovation of the contents, forms and methods of secondary economic education,
- models of project teaching in vocational economic subjects,
- using case studies to solve educational problems at secondary schools,
- supporting financial and entrepreneurial literacy at secondary schools etc.
