Prime Minister Janez Janša this evening attended a charity concert organised by the Slomšek Institution in Ljubljana. In his address, he remarked on the fact that Anton Martin Slomšek had also made Slovenian education widely known for cultural diversity and variety. The ideal of today’s Slovenian education is thus also diversity or freedom of belief and opinion. The present-day Slomšek Institutions constitute an important contribution to the practical implementation of freedom of belief and opinion in education.

 

(Photo: Bor Slana/Bobo)

 

The Prime Minister said that setting up the Slomšek Institution was an expression of the initiative of the citizens who were aware that real autonomy did not wait for orders or commands from state authorities. “The real autonomy of citizens is reflected in setting up different civil organisations and helping them build their own material foundations.  The task of a responsible state is to open the way for such initiatives and support them either in direct or indirect ways. In so doing, the state also strengthens the self-confidence and independence of its citizens,” was the Prime Minister’s opinion.

 

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(Photo: Bor Slana/Bobo)

 

Mr Janša also drew attention to the fact that the Slovenian cultural arena was still having difficulty in accepting that the welfare state was based not only on social transfers but also, first and foremost, on people’s social initiatives, on their ability to act on their own initiative and on their inventiveness, on their wish to help prompted by their own generous motives. “I am therefore delighted to welcome this evening’s solidarity event organised by the Slomšek Institution and private Catholic grammar schools, who have chosen intercultural dialogue to be the main focus of the event, thus supporting one of the topics or priorities of Slovenia’s EU Presidency,” concluded the Prime Minister, describing that gesture as another proof that the idealism of Anton Martin Slomšek was still alive.