Kiska Meets Representatives of Three Civil Initiatives at Palace

Bratislava, January 27 (TASR) – The Slovak economy is doing well, but there are areas that we need to improve, said President Andrej Kiska at a meeting with representatives of three civil initiatives – ‘We are Ringing for a Change’, ‘Enough’ and Slovensko.digital – at the Presidential Palace on Wednesday.

“I’m talking about health care, about giving respect back to education and care for primary schools,” said Kiska concerning the areas that need improvement.

Kiska praised the contribution of the three initiatives. According to him, they call on people to be active, to participate in elections and to be interested in public affairs.

“What’s important is that each of these initiatives offer active engagement in individual issues, whether it’s in the field of education, a law-based state or better services for citizens through the electronisation of these services,” said Kiska.

Kiska pointed out that 37 days prior to the House election it’s even more important to talk about every citizen’s responsibility and to call on people to vote.

“This campaign doesn’t have to be only about reprimanding, what wasn’t done and general promises. The initiative of these three groups is about making our politicians clearly talk about what our country is concerned about and to say what, how and by when they want to change something and to address the issues,” said Kiska.

‘Enough! Let’s not Gamble with Slovakia’s Future’ is an initiative pointing to the alarming state of Slovak education, said its representative Stanislav Boledovic.

“We’re very glad that partly thanks to the active participation and tabling of the topic by the president, civil initiatives and at the moment also brave teachers on strike, we can say that the topic of education has become a priority topic of pre-election discussions,” said Boledovic.

“We believe that today is a good time for politicians to show their leadership and to make a definite commitment even before the election regarding what they plan to do with education,” said Boledovic.

According to Jan Hargas of Slovensko.digital, Slovakia needs one person at state level to be responsible for IT innovations, to take over the topic after the election and to set a clear commitment concerning how to handle innovations via European Funds.

‘We Are Ringing for a Change’ is a association of four NGOs who focus on limiting the possibilities for corruption. Its representative Pavel Sibyla offered Kiska synergy when it comes to the president inking laws concerning corruption and a law-based state.