Leisure time is not equally available to all young people, and it is not easy to identify any one group which has optimum amounts of leisure time. Secondary school students are more overburdened than are working adults. However, those who have the least amount of leisure time tend to spend far more time on a single leisure activity.

The growing problems of the education system have also meant an end to all sorts of extracurricular activities in schools. In the past, schools sponsored special interest clubs and sporting events. After-school care is now only available for children up to the age of 10. However, even this is being cut back. In large cities this is leading to greater numbers of "latch-key" children. After their lessons these children return to empty apartments or houses. Parents are working much longer, and often nobody is home to watch over the children. These children frequently form groups which wander the streets with nothing to do. They often come into contact with drugs and crime.

Young people living in school dormitories in small towns feel that a lack of opportunity to meet with one another and spend time together is a pressing problem.

In the past, the Pioneers, an ideologically oriented organization, was available for children. While in Bohemia the Scouting tradition was quite strong, and many interesting leisure time activities were conducted even under the auspices of the Pioneers, in Slovakia this organization remained rather formal. However, there was a network of "Houses of Pioneers and Young People" that offered special interest activities under the supervision of professionals. There was also a network of art schools, the People's Art Schools, which provided gifted 6-to-20-year-olds instruction in music, art, dance and drama outside the scope of the general education system.

The 1993 School Facilities Act led to dramatic cuts in Government subsidies for leisure activities and art education. The most recent conceptual document released by the Ministry of Education and Science focuses on the provision of support for "leisure time centers" or, alternatively, "leisure time zones and parks." The idea is to establish locations where young people can play and meet and buy inexpensive refreshments in cafeterias. In rural areas the idea is to set up centers for special interest activities that would be able to satisfy the needs of young people for such activities. These centers are to be administered by communities, but partially subsidized through the state budget. The prevailing view is rather skeptical with regard to the willingness of communities and the ability of budgets to support such facilities. Nonetheless, centers are currently in operation in a number of locations (Lucenec, Pezinok, Trnava, Michalovce and Bratislava-Raca).

Their survival will depend on the ability to raise financing outside central government and local government budgets.

Note: This section is based on the opinions of Edit Bauer, Jan Kucera, Peter Marianek, Branislav Ondrus, Jaroslav Poliach, Jozef Sabo and Milan Valica.