National Platform Nitra 2011

The meeting of the highest decision making body of Erasmus Student Network, Slovak National Platform, took place on the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra on October 7-9, 2011. Slovak National Platform provides space for sharing ideas, information, and presenting activities done by individual ESN sections on national level. Representatives of six ESN section were present, particularly, ESN UNIZA Žilina, ESN EUBA Bratislava, ESN Comenius University Bratislava, ESN UPJŠ Košice, ESN UMB Banská Bystrica and the organising section ESN UNIAG Nitra. Moreover, representatives of four candidate sections attended the meeting, ESN PEU, ESN UNIPO, ESN UKF, and ESN VŠEMVS. These candidate sections were officially accepted as ESN sections at the end of the platform meeting. In addition, several guests were invited to participate in discussions and share their ideas. Particularly, members of the Student Council for Higher Education of Slovak Republic, namely, its president Juraj Tilesch, vice-president Janka Gašperová being also member of the candidate ESN section VŠEMVS, delegate František Küffer, and the secretary for internal affairs Vladimíra Muravská.

The International Office of the host university presented its structure and functioning on the first day of the platform meeting, presenters were Ing. Maroš Valach and Ing. Gabriela Slivinská. Further on, individual ESN sections introduced activities that they have done throughout the year. The last presentation of the day was presented by Jana Šrámková, delegate of the Slovak Academic Association for International Cooperation (SAAIC).

The agenda of the second day consisted of presentations of candidate ESN sections and presentations of candidates running for the post of President, National Representative, Webmaster and the Social Erasmus coordinator. Each post had one candidate, respectively, Miroslov Hajnoš (National Representative) ran for the post of President of ESN Slovak National Board, Prokop Teper (candidate ESN section UKF Nitra) ran for the post of National Representative, Andrej Macák (ESN UNIAG Nitra) ran for the post of Webmaster and Miroslava Švábová (ESN UMB Banska Bystrica) ran for the post of Social Erasmus coordinator; all the candidates were elected for their respective posts on Sunday’s election. In addition, Saturday’s agenda was enriched by the presentation of the International Students’ Days (ISD 4) by Yannis Dimitriadis, president of ESN UNIZA in Žilina; and by the speech of František Küffer, representative of Slovak Cultural Institute. Moreover, Janka Gašperová from ESN VŠEMVS introduced the plan for the next Slovak National Platform in Bratislava.

Saturday session finished with the presentation of our special guest, Damien Lamy-Preto, treasurer of the International Board, and the presentation of ESN Czech Republic by its president Vojtech Talášek.

The last day of the platform meeting was filled mainly with the election processes; however, also several presentations were presented, LLP Erasmus, ExchangeAbility Project, and Use-it Project.  The host ESN section, ESN UNIAG Nitra prepared the whole platform meeting with the excellence. Thank you.