PhDr. Viera Hajdúková, PhD.
Ms. Viera Hajdúková works at the Ministry of Education, Research, Development and Youth of the Slovak Republic as a chief state advisor, expert in the field of pre-primary education.
She has also worked as a kindergarten teacher, kindergarten director, school inspector of the State School Inspectorate for Kindergartens, as a professional employee and methodologist for pre-primary education. Currently, in addition to pre-primary education, she is also involved in school management issues, she is an expert in matters of selection procedures and the operation and competences of the school's self-governing body - the school council.
She was awarded the Great Medal of St. Gorazd on 10 March 2023 for her lifelong work and extraordinary results achieved in the preparation of professional and legislative conditions in the field of pre-school education in Slovakia.
PaedDr. Karin Hambálková, PhD.
Ms. Karin Hambálková has worked as a kindergarten teacher for 34 years, 20 years as a part of the management. She is an external university teacher at the Faculty of Education, University of Trnava, Department of School Pedagogy, where she is engaged in teaching practice and student internships. She actively works as a trainee teacher in the pedagogical practice of students, collaborates on various projects at national and international level.
V ostatnom čase ju, okrem riadiacich aktivít, oslovila technika a prírodné vedy v predprimárnom vzdelávaní. Materská škola, v ktorej pracuje, je v spolupráci s Národným inštitútom vzdelávania a mládeže školiacim strediskom pre vzdelávací program Technika hrou. V rámci danej problematiky je lektorkou pre rôzne vzdelávacie inštitúcie. Venuje sa tiež aktívnej publikačnej činnosti v oblasti manažmentu riadenia v spolupráci s RAABE Slovensko.
Ing. Lenka Hrúzová
Ms. Lenka Hrúzová graduated from the Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Science, where she first encountered environmental education. Already during her studies she was engaged in activities that were closely related to nature and children. These activities later culminated in the founding of one of the first forest clubs in Slovakia, which she co-founded with friends in 2015 in Žilina and has been active in it ever since.
Her desire to get to know other forest clubs in Slovakia, together with other similarly minded people, led her to found the Association of Children's Forest Clubs in 2017. Within the Association she helps new clubs to grow and existing ones to develop. She considers it important to talk about the benefits of outdoor education and also to develop international cooperation on this topic.
She believes that contact with nature is irreplaceable for children, that nature is the perfect space for play and all-round development of children, and that being in nature is the main prerequisite for the development of environmental sensitivity. For the further development of forest clubs in Slovakia, she considers their legislative anchoring, professionalisation and support of the clubs to be crucial.
Hsiao-Chen Lin
Ms. Hsiao-Chen Lin is Early Childhood Development Specialist at UNICEF Slovakia Refugee Response Office, and previously Education Officer at UNICEF New York Headquarters.
She holds a Master of Education degree from Teachers College, Columbia University (where her focus was on early childhood and children with disabilities) and Law degrees from McGill University. Prior to pursuing her passion in early childhood education, she worked as a lawyer at an international business law firm in Montreal, Canada. Hsiao-Chen has experience working with and teaching preschoolers and kindergarteners.
PaedDr. Eva Pupíková, PhD.
Ms. Eva Pupíková has worked as a kindergarten teacher and kindergarten director. Currently, she is working in the field of pre-primary education as a lecturer in the further education of kindergarten teachers. She has participated in several projects implemented by the National Institute of Education and Youth, including a project implemented in cooperation with the international humanitarian organization UNICEF.
In her lecturing activities she tries to link new information in the field of psychology and neurodidactics with didactics of pre-primary education and with the issues of teacher training.
Mgr. Zuzana Suchová
Ms. Zuzana Suchová graduated from the Faculty of Law of Comenius University in Bratislava. She is a statutory member of the parent organization with nationwide scope, Platform of Families of Children with Disabilities. In the Platform of Families she coordinates a team dedicated to promoting the needs and rights of children with disabilities and their families, discusses these issues with ministries, politicians, experts and organizations, consults and prepares legislative proposals. She trains peer advisors for the Platform of Families and works as a trainer with various organisations that train educational and professional staff.
Her favourite topic is inclusive education and human rights in general. She worked in the expert group and the research team in the preparation of the so called system of supporting measures.
Anna Symington-Maar
Ms. Anna Symington-Maar is a Slovak educator, activist. During her career she has taught children from disadvantaged families in Nepal, Colombia, Thailand and in a poor part of London. She has applied her experience in international education in the Teach for Slovakia programme, which she co-founded and was also its programme director.
She brought the „Rozmanita“ project to Slovakia, which created the first inclusive kindergarten in Bratislava.
Mgr. Barbara Švidraň Basarabová, PhD.
Ms. Barbara Švidraň Basarabová graduated in Pre-school and Elementary Pedagogy at the Faculty of Education of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, where she also completed her doctoral studies.
In her professional activity she focuses mainly on inclusive education, on the issues of improving the conditions of upbringing and education of children in kindergarten. She also deals with the issues of Slovaks living abroad, especially in the field of teacher education. It cooperates with NGOs that provide support to children from marginalised Roma communities and Ukrainian children. In cooperation with the Open Society Foundation, she has worked on the topic of human rights education for children. She also participated in the upcoming curriculum reform.
PhDr. Erika Tichá, PhD.
As a special educator, therapeutic educator and vision therapist, Ms. Erika Tichá has long been involved with families of children born prematurely, with developmental risks or disabilities and their accompaniment in crisis life situations from birth to 7 years.
She is interested in the field of early intervention and early childhood development. She graduated in special and therapeutic pedagogy at the Faculty of Pedagogy of Comenius University in Bratislava and in vision therapy in Prague, after completing her rigorous and doctoral studies at the Department of Special Education she worked for 15 years as a university teacher and at the same time in several institutions for children with developmental risks or health disadvantages from birth to 7 years in the Department of Education, Health and Social Affairs. In 2014, she co-founded the Early Intervention Centre Bratislava, n. o. and in 2016 also the Private Specialized Centre for Counselling and Prevention of Early Intervention Centre for children up to 7 years of age in Bratislava, where she still works as a director. Since 2016, she has also served on the presidency of the Association of Providers and Supporters of Early Intervention in Slovakia, where together with a team of experts and parents, she strives to methodically develop the early intervention service in Slovakia.
Mgr. Michaela Vargová, PhD.
Ms. Michaela Vargová has been working as a kindergarten teacher since 1997. She graduated from the Secondary Pedagogical School in Lučenec in the field of teaching for kindergartens and studied Pre-school and Elementary Pedagogy at the Faculty of Education of Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica continuously from the degree of Bc. to PhD. She has devoted her entire professional life to the issue of pre-primary education. She is the founder of the Council for the Development of Kindergartens, which is engaged in promoting positive changes in the field of pre-primary education in Slovakia.
In the kindergarten, which she has been running since 2014, she strives to create a respectful environment for children, parents and staff and to build a supportive community that benefits children in particular.
She works closely with the Faculty of Education at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, as well as with the National Institute of Education and Youth, most recently as a professional staff member in the UNICEF project Supporting Ukrainian refugees in education.
Mgr. Barbora Vodičková, PhD.
Ms. Barbora Vodičková graduated in Therapeutic Pedagogy and received her doctorate in Pedagogy, both from Comenius University in Bratislava. She is currently an associate professor at the Department of Therapeutic Pedagogy at Comenius University.
She has a long-standing research and clinical interest in the field of development and related difficulties in young children, with links to the field of their training, education and early intervention. She worked for eight years as a director and therapeutic educator in an international kindergarten. Working in a multicultural and multilingual environment has taught her to find solutions for children with different difficulties and handicaps directly in the kindergarten setting. In addition to teaching at the college level, she is involved in individual therapeutic and educational interventions for children with different types of problems, many of the children in intervention are in preschool. She is also involved in publishing in this area.
Lucia Gomez
Ms. Lucia Gomez is the founder of the Alliance of Private Nurseries and Kindergartens and a long-time operator of the private international kindergarten Rainbow Garden in Limbach.
She brings to Slovakia her experience with childcare facilities from different parts of the world (USA, Great Britain, Australia, Colombia...). She is the initiator of several legislative changes in the field of early care and preschool education. She actively entered the public debate and pointed out the weaknesses of the so-called Nursery Law. She also offered her expertise and insight in foreign policies in setting the legislative conditions for the introduction of compulsory pre-primary education for 5-year-old children, especially in relation to home education. For many years she has been involved in the society of friends of children from orphanages, Smile as a Gift (Úsmev ako dar), in which she also acts as a professional mother. She has also brought her experience to Tanzania where she helped to set up a legislative framework for professional parenting. After the outbreak of war in Ukraine, she took in an 11-member refugee family with 9 children who would otherwise have ended up in orphanages. Her life has been associated with many projects supporting disadvantaged populations.
Mgr. Zuzana Danišková, PhD.
Ms. Zuzana Danišková graduated in mathematics, ethics and civic education at Comenius University in Bratislava, where she subsequently defended her dissertation. She also completed a one-year study of public policy at the same university. During her studies, she started working at the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Management/City University as an assistant professor. Since September 2022, she has been an associate professor at the Department of School Pedagogy, Faculty of Education, University of Trnava. Due to her previous studies, she is working in the field of socio-humanitarian education in the school environment and the ethical-professional aspect of the teaching profession.
In 2017-2019 she was the lead of the KEGA project Refugee Children in Slovakia: a concrete challenge for global-development education, in the framework of which she visited several countries in order to bring to Slovakia inspirations for working with children with a different mother tongue in early childhood. She was the editor and co-author of the publication The Child Speaking a Different Language: the Possibilities of Compensatory Support in Preschool Education, published by the State Pedagogical Institute.
Mgr. Zuzana Lynch, PhD.
Since 2014 Ms. Zuzana Lynch has been working at the Faculty of Education at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. In her pedagogical and scientific-research activities she focuses on early childhood education and care. She is interested in the topics of preschool curriculum and inclusive education, preschool didactics, as well as digital technologies and media education. She has participated in several national and international projects. Currently, she is working on the issue of improving the conditions for the education of two-year-old children in kindergartens and also on the issue of education of children with a different mother tongue in Slovak schools. She cooperates with NGOs Open Society Foundation, Škola dokorán - Wide Open School n.o. and is the vice-chair of the professional association Council for the Development of Kindergartens.
RNDr. Eleonóra Liptáková
She is a teacher at Dobšiná Primary School, a mentor at the Regional Teacher Support Centre in Rožňava, a special educator, director of the civic association Childhood for Children and a supervisor.
She graduated from the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice in mathematics - physics and from the Comenius University in Bratislava in special education.
She has been working as a teacher in Dobšiná Primary School since 1993, with a break in the years 2000 - 2006, when she was the headmistress of the Primary School with Kindergarten in Nižná Slaná. In 2007 - 2022 she also worked as a school special educator in Dobšiná Primary School, with concurrent work experience in a private centre for special education counselling in Košice.
For a long time she has been working on the specifics of education of Roma pupils from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and looking for ways to make this process more effective. This led her in 2013 to the establishment of the NGO Childhood to Children and the Parents' Centre Little House (Domček). As part of the activities of the NGO, she is currently engaged in the supervision of early care assistants in the environment of generational poverty and special-educational counselling.
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