COOPERATION WITH PRACTICE AS A SUPPORT OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH AT UNIVERSITIES

From June until September 2011, INEKO in cooperation with Entrepreneurship alliance of Slovakia, American business chamber and Austrian-Slovakian business chamber carried out a survey between the firms operating in Slovakia. The results of analysis showed that the firms in Slovakia are mainly unsatisfied with the quality of graduates. This confirms that the current form of pedagogical approach and pedagogical system are not sufficient for student to acquire necessary skills and knowledge for practice. One of the main problems is absence of practical thinking. Therefore it is desirable to incorporate appropriate forms of pedagogical approach into the contemporary education to effectively achieve objectives with regard to the demand of the society. An appropriate element in the process of improving the quality of university education is intensive cooperation with practise. Faculty of Civil Engineering of Technical University in Kosice took a part of national project "The Universities as Engines of Knowledge Society Development" of which the objective was to adapt the system of academic education to current requirements of the knowledgeable society. The outputs of in depth analysis carried out by the project team are the following recommendations for the forms of education and the development of key competencies. From the above stated results that the adequate methods of development of continuous confrontation of acquired knowledge with the practice are also excursions. Well organised excursion could be considered as an instrument of practical education which combines observation and understanding in the real environment. The aim of this article is to present the excursion as a form of collaboration with practice and as one of the possible and innovative methods of education.