Page 66 - Annual Report 2014-2015
P. 66

meetings have taken place devoted to strategic issues, not only for the above mentioned years, but with a view to the year 2020.
Strategic planning is a never-ending process. Everything is a function of time: our priorities, our people, resources available, business environment, political environment. And making assumptions, we know how risky that is. We need a plan setting a few priorities, key measurable indicators and target values. That can be enough as a motor and navigator for the next activities. How to achieve these strategic aims is a task of the operative management. That was our philosophy when we started recently to talk about ZSVTS 2020.
From left to right: Mr. PlavČan - today´s minister of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic; Mr. Petráš, ZSVTS President; Mr. McGrath, ENAEE Vice-President
Being proud of a tradition is a good thing, to some extent. And we are proud of 25 years of existence of the ZSVTS. We celebrated this anniversary last year (2015) in March. It was a big convention, with the presence of media, high rank of cials and a number of interesting speeches. But we have not changed our way of communication, we lack fresh blood among our members, we missed a number of opportunities how to help better cooperation between the academy and business.
We still rely too much on meetings, conferences, lectures. In our annual report we have a long list of those held in 2014 and 2015. Less impressive is that they are attended by a small fraction of our membership and even smaller number
of fans. The world of communication has changed dramati- cally, and we are obliged to follow new trends. We also would like to see living discussion forums, large numbers of blogs from our members and fans, boosting numbers of website visits, see also foreign contributors. So ZSVTS 2020 must set up new communication channels,  nd ways how to initiate meaningful discussions and networking, see the impact measured by relevant indicators, contribu- tions, participants.
To achieve the dramatic changes toward ZSVTS 2020 we need a crowd of skilled experts in many areas – which, undoubtedly, we have. The only challenge is to identify them and attract them to help make ZSVTS 2020 happen. There are so many inspiring examples shown by our FEANI friends how an association like us can do things very professionally and ef ciently.
Like the rest of Europe, we are also hit by decreasing interest of young people in studying technical subjects. ZSVTS 2020 must  nd ways what to offer the high school and university students to join us and start a career of an engineer or technician. Quality of education is a widely discussed issue with a big impact in the society. The truth is that the graduates from our technical universities have more comfortable position on the labour market than their friends leaving the schools of social sciences.
The EUR-ACE quality label awarded to engineering study programs can be a new strong impulse how to make our technical studies more systematic, ef cient, market oriented, competitive and attractive to young ones. ZSVTS has made the  rst important steps to take initiative, estab- lished the Accreditation Centre (AC ZSVTS), became a full member of ENAEE and now, we are in the middle of the authorization process, which we hope will be completed this year.
Our strategy formulated in the Program Declaration 2015-2018 and Agenda 2020 has already started and outlines the main goals and priorities in FEANI agenda. The year 2016 will bring to us new challenges, new oppor- tunities and new visions. We will see whether we can make a swift change aimed at increased impact of our activities, empowering people in our organization, seeing rising trends in measurable indicators. 
 
























































































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