BUSINESS ACADEMY IN LEVICE SLOVAKIA

History and present of the school
Business academy in Levice belongs among state trade secondary schools majoring in economics. Secondary economic school in Levice was established in 1967 and since then it has been preparing qualified cadres for all areas of our economy. Our school has always had to react flexibly to the changed economic situation and it has always tried to prepare its graduates to be successful at their workplaces. The considerable change has come in the special trade school system in Slovakia due to social process and the situation on the labour market since September 1990. The school transmuted , it changed its name to Business academy, the structure of professional orientation and school subjects. Now the school offers secondary education finished with a school-leaving examination. Graduates of this school can continue their studies at universities predominantly of economic or law objectives. Our students are prepared for the practise in the production enterpreses, for state and public administration, for private enterprises nad companies. Thank to versatileness they can work as accountants, economists, managers, secretaries, salesmen, private enterpreneurs, bankers.
Nowadays Business academy has 12 classes and four hundred students at the age of 15 – 19. The school is equipped with the modern computer technique, we have been involved in several Internet projects. Business academy has some special classrooms for teaching economic subjects, two special classrooms for teaching economic exercises, accounting and other economic subjects. Three special classrooms, equipped with electronic typewriters, are used for teaching technics of paperwork and economic correspondence.
Pedagogical staff is fully qualified and has 30 teachers who teach both general and economic subjects. The school offers accomodation of students in the boarding house and boarding in the school canteen.

School priorities
Business school sets the priority to prepare its students for life, it has the ambition to educate young people who will be able to carry on economic work linked with gaining and processing information in the area of production, supplying, sales, marketing, management, human resources management. The graduate student should conduct independently paperwork, bookkeeping, master work with computers. He should be an independent, enterprising, deliberate, and economically thinking person. During four years of the study at Business academy the student undergoes these subjects: corporate economics, bookkeeping, economic geography, technics of paperwork and correspondence, statistics, national economics, science of commodities, law study, economic exercises, mathematics, social communication, and facultative subjects – banking, management, marketing, economic week, applied economy. Students of the third and fourth forms take part in biweekly practice in some state, private enterprises, banks, or tax offices in our region. This practice allows students to use their theoretical knowledge directly in practice.
Students study Slovak language, history, biology and ecology, civics, ethics and religious education, physical education. We teach English, German and Russian languages at Business academy. Students choose two languages and at the end of their study they can use all language skills. Foreign language teachers lead their students to be communicative. They work with economic texts and master economic correspondence in the foreign language. Students take part in competitions, olympiads and projects and they achieve great results.
Students can try out working atmosphere in the „real“ firm. In the third form within economic exercises in the fictious firm they work in one of the fictious firms. The fictious firms have special classes with modern computer technology with Internet at its disposal. Nowadays there are four fictious firms at school. They trade with Slovak and foreign firms which work at different schools and they take part in fairs of fictious firms at home and abroad.
A student company APE – JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT SR – Youth for future provides extra economic education by means of practical programmes. The connection with the enterpreneurially sector and the professional approach gives students the opportunity to decide ethically and have a good sense of direction in open market economy before being involved to working process.

Projects and competitions
Students of Business academy become involved in many projects and competitions organized by Ministry of Education of the Slovak republic, the European Union and other organizations. One of them is e-Economy. It includes INVESTLAND – a virtual simulation of economics on Internet – its aim is to familiarize students with market economy and Internet. Fifty students are involved in this project. E-Economy is a virtual three-month long course of economy. During this course students get the drift of basic principles of economy and values of open market. Students co-operate with a virtual teacher – tutor.
There is Educational Centre of Infovek at Business school which carries out the Project of teachers education in ICT.
Really favourite among students are Olympiads. Students studying English take part in essay competitions organized by British Council, YMCA and a magazine Friendship. German language students correspond with students in different countries of the world via Internet.
Our students actively participate in various social - science projects. Among favourite projects belong projects organized by civic initiatives Človek v ohrozeni, UNICEF, UNESCO, Council of Europe European Parliament and Amnesty International. Every year the students take part in Human Rights Olympiad. Its aim is to know human rights and willingness to fight for their abidance. In the co-operation with Slovak Debate Association the student team takes part in Model UNO and BratMUN conferences. It offers students the opportunity to try out working in „real“ UNO, improve their knowledge in politology and solve global problems of mankind.
Human rights club has been involved in the European project eTwinning with its projectS. The school has worked on 17 eTwinning projects, four of them have been awarded by theree first and one second prize in the Slovak national eTwinning competition :).
Those students who are interested in special issues – history, folk culture, environment, fine art, etc. can be active in Secondary school special activity.
Students are very active in the sporting area. They take part in various sporting events and competitions, inter-class tournaments and other sporting matches with sportsmen from secondary schools in our region.
All students can take part in various and interesting social and cultural events and activities. Student Council organizes matriculations, student school fancy-dress balls, school picnics, chess and tennis tournaments.
The Co-operation with parents has been really good and it has been improving. Parents support multilaterally efforts of the school and they are actively interested in educational process at Business school.
There are several clubs at Business academy:
-Club of economic projects