QUALITY OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM VERSUS COMPETITIVENESS

The global economy must seek new approaches and policies in the 21st century to promote economic progress. The unification of the world market as a result of globalization trends also forces individual countries to increase their competitiveness, which is the essential basis of knowledge, education. A decisive factor of the economic growth and thus competitiveness is the availability of educated human capital and the development of its potential. Economic growth should not be the sole objective of economic policy but should contribute to people's well-being and development, so it should be human-oriented, the resources needed to increase the well-being of better education. The paper is aimed at analyzing and comparing the achieved levels of education systems of the Slovak Republic, the Czech Republic and Finland based on two OECD research studies (PISA and PIAAC). The PISA study evaluates the mathematical, reading and natural literacy of 15-year-old pupils, while the PIAAC study deals with numerical and mathematical literacy testing of 16-65 year olds and problem solving in the information technology environment. The quality of the country education system is also evaluated by the GCI index, based on its selected determinants of the 4th and 5th pillar. Information gathered could point to the effectiveness of the education system in selected countries and at the same time inform about those areas where efforts should be made to improve the education system so that young people are competitive in global labour markets.