Education improving thorough information technology and their impact on the students career pathways within the “IT Academy” Project

The concept of building an information and knowledge society is the center of interest of all developed countries of the world, the European Union and Slovakia including. It is a trend that is conditioned by technological developments in the processing and use of information and communication technologies (ICT), which affect various aspects of everyday life. The urgent need for new ICT knowledge and skills, as well as the demographic changes that Europe is facing, have highlighted the importance of young people’s IT education. Improving digital literacy and inclusion, interoperability, the application of ICT in problem-solving is also one of the objectives of the national project “IT Academy - Education for the 21st Century which strives significantly at primary, secondary and higher education levels to support this trend. The aim of the paper is to analyze the impact of popularization and motivational activities within formal and non-formal education on various target groups of the project and to analyse the efficiency, effectivity and usefulness of ICT utilization in education. Although the interpretations of digital literacy may differ, they share a common view on the need to include a critical dimension in teaching and focusing on the social aspects of literacy. We monitored the digital literacy index of secondary school teachers, we focused on comparing the ring activity of 3 groups of selected exact indicators at secondary schools, which had scientific laboratories in comparison with schools that did not have laboratories in their equipment. We used general methods of scientific work, such as analysis, comparison, deduction and others. The primary data were collected by a questionnaire survey. The data were processed in MS Excel and evaluated by statistical methods.