Be ready for lots of hard work!
The oldest Slovak town Nitra was built on seven hills just like Rome . For centuries, Nitra region with its geographical position and natural character has been destined to become a “Mecca” of Slovak agriculture.
Profile
Secondary School of Veterinary Studies – located in the western part of Slovakia, in Nitra – was established in 1960 ( Secondary Technical School of Agriculture ) and since then it has developed into the preparatory regional institution that provides complete secondary vocational education and training provides opportunities for diverse students from across Slovakia in two main study fields Agribusiness and Veterinary Healthcare and Hygiene and moreover, you can choose from four subfields: Farming , Cynology , Breeding farm animals or Breeding exotic animals. After successful completion of our study programme our graduates can become farmers, farm animal breeders, exotic animal breeders, animal nutritionists, plant breeders, lab workers, pharmaceutical sales representatives, veterinary assistants and nurses, even police cynologists, dog breeders or professional groomers. Some of them are enrolled at the agricultural and veterinary universities where they can focus on their academic studies.
Experiential learning
Our veterinary school is equipped with modern educational and training facilities. However,
in order to excel in our performance, there has been developed cooperation with sixteen training centres around the country. We may mention the most interesting ones: ZOO Bojnice, The Botanical Garden and Vivarium of SUA ( Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra ), Veterinary Clinique ALTEA, Farmyard Branovo, Pod Babicou Ranch and many others.
Work experience projects, traditional contests and EUROPEA events
As we live in an international society our mission reaches beyond our country´s borders as we have participated in essential work experience projects and several regional, national as well as international agricultural and veterinary contests.
One of the most attractive is a cultural training project in Japan, Kagoshima in Bio Gen Koji Green Farm. This Japanese project was launched in 2012, an agreement with a Japanese organisation was signed about four-month and six-month long traineeships and since we have sent our best students regularly for individual professional practice where they help with the research on the effects on the livestock of Aspergillus oryzae (KOJI) .
The school also participated in the ERASMUS Plus programme with the project „Young Farmers´ Mobility in New Trends in Greenhouse Production“ and 18 students took part in 2-week mobility in Greece.
Taking part in agricultural and veterinary events or contests is primarily intended to encourage our students to meet another young people from all over Europe , cooperate with them, improve their language skills and hopefully, to view agriculture as a viable career future option.
The new school year always brings plenty of new challenges. We can mention International Youth Ploughing Contest 2018 in Estonian Olustvere in September where our team – consisting of the agriculture and veterinary students Kristián Randár and Adrián Kilmajer – got 4th and 7th place (19).
In October we also joined Student competition in Cattle Judgment in Traboch and LFS Kobenz (Austria) for the very first time to gain more knowledge and experience and meanwhile the veterinary team took part in Czech prestigious contest The Cup of the General Director of the State Veterinary Administration where the graduate Marek Tököly was awarded the prize for The Most Outstanding Individual Achievement.
In May our school hosted the national round of The Young Eco Farmer contest with a international participation of Czech and Serbian students . Our graduate Oľga Dominiková won the first place and a third-year student Kristán Randár got the 3rd one.
Finally, AGROLYMPICS 2019 in Poland. We were pleasantly surprised by the promising results of our school team (8th place from 18 international teams) and we look forward to next year challenge in Estonia.
Success is not for the lazy…
Students` Professional Activities (SPA/SOČ) is annually organized and guaranteed by the State Institute of Vocational Education (ŠIOV). SPA national winners represent Slovakia and of course their schools in several international contests. We can be very proud of some of them and their results achieved on the international scene. Zuzana Skopalova represented our school with her project work „Breeding mangalitsa pigs” in Soči, Michal Sysel with his project work „Breeding Šumava Sheep“ in Abu Dabi, and the last , but we hope not the least, was Andrej Bojda with his outstanding project work „No-Till Farming“ in Brussels.
Not competition but cooperation
„Because real winners do not compete.“ Over the past few years, our teachers have pushed themselves to learn new innovative ways to reach students and raise achievement.
We all learn to cooperate.
Without the support of the school and of course the parents all those achievements would not have been possible. Thank you.
Written by Drahomíra Vargová, EUROPEA-Slovakia
Acknowledgements: many thanks to Drahomíra and Henrieta (SK) 🙂
Photos: from Drahomíra (SK)
