Availability and Quality of School Facilities as a Determinant of Local Economic Development: The Slovak Experience

Abstract

The availability and quality of school facilities has long been a hot topic, not only at the level of self-government, but also in respect of the whole public administration within the context of Slovakia. COVID-19 and the current military conflict in Ukraine are jointly putting increased pressure on local self-governments as the founders of kindergartens and primary schools. Whether the availability and quality of school facilities is a determinant of local development is a question for which there are very few studies. The aim of this paper is to identify long-term satisfaction with the availability and quality of kindergartens and primary schools in the Červený Kameň microregion; this is understood in the context of these institutions serving as an important determinant of local development. In this paper, a qualitative evaluation (survey) of parents of students in the Čerevený Kameň microregion was conducted. In order to increase the objectivity of the obtained results, the survey was conducted two times with an interval of 7 years (2014 vs. 2021). Our results show that parents perceive the availability and quality in the same way even over a long period, but without confirmed statistically significant differences. At the same time, however, we found that satisfaction with the analyzed school facilities changed over time.