Does ICT Education in the Region Need a Strategy? Background and Proposal of the Integrated Approach

The development of the ICT sector within Slovakia will follow the trends that exist in the EU and worldwide. In 2018, the Slovak ICT sector exceeded the level of 3 billion EUR at a growth of approximately 7%. From this perspective, it is clear that the ICT industry is significantly affected by new technologies (such as cloud, artificial intelligence, IoT, 5G networks, big data and analytics) that enable the digitalization of the economy and society and growth based on innovations that has never been here before. What has changed is a shift from a relatively stable to a rapidly changing sector. On this basis, we would like to claim that there is significant growth potential. However, this will be closely linked to the availability of a skilled labor force for the ICT sector. Inability to train such labor force will result in a loss of competitiveness in the global economy and will lead to serious economic and social problems. At the moment, the ICT industry is the most desirable sector in terms of employment, not merely in the Košice region.