Generation 3.0 has been contributing to the change of education in Slovakia for five years now

The need for a change in education has been talked about for many years. At the Pontis Foundation, we responded to it in 2017 with the Generation 3.0 programme, which seeks innovative educational approaches, connects them with the educational community, helps them with effective settings and supports them in disseminating to schools all across Slovakia.

We have now summarised the five-year operation of Generation 3.0, its results and impact on graduates in our unique material entitled the Impact Report. “The data show that the programme has been fulfilling its vision and educational innovative approaches are successfully reaching Slovak teachers,” says Norbert Maur, senior programme manager at the Pontis Foundation.

Systematic support

Generation 3.0 achieves its results through systematic work with civic organisations and startups. The programme helps streamline their educational projects and adapt them to the needs of teachers and schools.

Organisations and companies with a public benefit can always apply to Generation 3.0 at the beginning of the year. The expert committee then selects about 15 of them and moves them into an education event entitled EDUcamp. It is an intensive three-day event through which we connect selected projects with experts from business and education. It aims to find ways to disseminate educational approaches to more schools. In the five years of the programme’s existence, more than 250 projects have applied, of which 59 have advanced to the EDUcamp.

Selected projects from the EDUcamp then proceed into the EDUaccelerator. It is a three-month mentoring and training programme with individual mentors and access to inspiring training activities. Financial support is also included. Until 2021, it amounted to a maximum of 10,000 euros. In 2022, it will be 30,000 euros. So far, a total of 26 projects have benefitted from this key activity of the programme.

The financial sustainability of organisations is growing

Does the EDUaccelerator help its participants? If so, in what way? We searched for the answers by examining five indicators before and after the graduates had entered the accelerator: the organisation’s budget, the number of team members, the number of cooperating schools, the number of teachers involved, as well as the students affected. “Hard data confirms that organisations that have gone through our acceleration programme show growth in all indicators. The pandemic was not an obstacle either. The participants who joined the programme last year grew with their activities despite the difficult situation in schools,” N. Maur says.

Contribution of mentors and researchers

Over the past five years, 117 business and education professionals have helped the organisations with an effective set-up of their educational projects. Together, they provided almost 1,500 hours of pro bono consultations. “Thanks to expert advice, organisations are becoming more financially sustainable and less dependent on grants. The number of organisations that finance their activities through their business model has increased from 30% to 46%,” N. Maur explains. Thanks to the greater financial stability, organisations can focus on project growth and its dissemination to other schools. Thus, the graduates of Generation 3.0 have already brought a change in the teaching of civics, an increase in digital and business skills, as well as new methods for teaching STE(A)M subjects.

Researchers also play an important role in Generation 3.0. Thanks to them, organisations are able to determine the extent of dissemination of their projects and measure the impact of their activities in Slovak schools. In the five years of the programme, we allocated almost 1,800 hours for research.

Reaching the teachers in the regions

Innovative educational approaches were also disseminated through nine EDUpoints, which were developed in cooperation with local governments and civic organisations: Comenius Institute, Indícia (tr. Hint), V.I.A.C. – Institute for Youth Support and Development, Kalimba – Community Education, City of Nitra, Lifestarter. Together with our partners, we held 152 workshops, discussions and demonstration classes, which resulted in more than 9,000 participations of teachers.

Thanks to systematic work with organisations and the dissemination of innovative educational approaches through EDUpoints, Generation 3.0 has recorded almost 16,500 participations in its activities for the teaching community. A complete overview of the results of the programme over five years can be found in our Impact Report (2017 – 2021).

However, we are not slowing down in our efforts to shape the way of teaching in Slovak schools, and the Generation 3.0 programme continues.