The increased scholarships also proved ineffective in attracting students to pharmacy, economic and applied informatics, or industrial mechatronics. By contrast, the year-on-year growth in scholarship holders enrolled in shortage disciplines was recorded mainly among students of general medicine and dentistry. Last year, 127 medical students received scholarships, while 23 students chose dentistry. Students in these fields accounted for more than half of the year-on-year increase in scholarship holders who chose a shortage study programme, according to the analysis of the Supreme Audit Office of the Slovak Republic (SAO). Shortage programmes were identified in seven study areas – economics and management, electrical engineering and the automotive industry, informatics and cybernetics, teacher training and education sciences, and healthcare. The list also included chemistry, biology, physics, and, finally, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, transport, and earth resources. The MoE annually updates the list of shortage programmes based on labour market surveys and consultations with employers.

In its original form, around 1,000 applicants received scholarships each year since 2022. Each recipient was, or will be, granted EUR 9,000 over three years. For shortage programmes, the top 400 graduates of 2024 were awarded an increased scholarship of EUR 16,500. In the first three years, the scholarships were funded exclusively through the Recovery and Resilience Plan. The scheme, now co-financed by the state, will continue in an adjusted form.

“In light of our analysts’ findings, it is important that changes are introduced which may encourage more top graduates to stay in Slovakia to study and later pursue careers in shortage professions. However, as a society, we must realise that a scholarship is only one of many criteria that young people consider when deciding about their future,” emphasised Vice-President of the SAO, Henrieta Crkoňová. “It is necessary to continuously improve the quality of education, strengthen its connection to practice, and also take into account various student services, including quality housing and extracurricular activities,” she added.

From the 2025/2026 academic year, the ministry will determine only the number of scholarships for shortage programmes, while the entire awarding process will be managed by individual universities according to their own procedures. Their number will increase from 400 to 1,500, while the annual support will decrease to EUR 4,000. For talent scholarships, annual support will rise from EUR 3,000 to EUR 4,000, and for the first time master’s students will also be eligible. The SAO positively assesses the changes introduced by the MoE in this scholarship scheme.

Last year, only 335 out of 1,241 top graduates from non-bilingual schools took part in the scholarship scheme – just over a quarter of eligible students. Top graduates are defined as those who achieved an average percentile above 90 in the two subjects with the best results in the external part of their school-leaving exams. “Every top graduate was eligible to participate in the scholarship scheme. Since this was not the case, it is reasonable to assume that a large share of the remaining 906 graduates did not participate because they left to study abroad,” notes the Vice-President of the SAO. Of course, some may have chosen to study in Slovakia without applying for the scholarship, or decided not to study at all. Graduates of bilingual schools, who usually complete their school-leaving exams over two years, are not included in the analysis of the national audit authority. In their case, an above-average share of students is expected to continue their studies abroad. The extent to which scholarships prevented an even greater outflow of talent cannot be assessed.