Czech Republic

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Country in a nutshell

Source: Original gif on: the CIA's "The World Factbook" / The Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe with neighbouring countries Poland to the north-east, Germany to the west, Austria to the south, and Slovakia to the east. The capital and largest city is Prague (Czech: Praha), the official language is Czech and the citizens of this country are called the Czechs. The Czech Republic is composed of the historic regions of Bohemia and Moravia, as well as parts of Silesia. The Czech Republic is a member of NATO since 1999 and the European Union since 2004. As of January 1, 2009, the Czech Republic holds the EU Presidency (2009).

The Czech Republic is a pluralist multi-party parliamentary representative democracy. President Václav Klaus is the current head of state (for the 2008-2013 term). The Prime Minister for 2008-2013 is the head of government (currently Mirek Topolánek). The Parliament has two chambers — the Chamber of Deputies] and the Senate. It is also a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the Council of Europe (on European integration and Human Rights) and the Visegrád Group, which is a regional alliance between the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Since 2000, the country is divided into thirteen regions (Czech: kraje, singular kraj) and the capital city of Prague. Each region has its own elected Regional Assembly and hejtman (usually translated as hetman or president). In Prague, their powers are executed by the city council and the mayor.

Adapted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic

Communism history

The Czech Republic is a relatively small country (an area of 78,886 km2) in Central Europe with 10.3 million inhabitants, with a population density of 131 per square km. It was formerly part of Czechoslovakia, where communists seized power in 1948 and retained almost complete control over all areas of life. In 1989 this communist regime fell and Czechoslovakia transformed from a centrally controlled country to a parliamentary democracy with the President as the head of state. This change had an impact on economy, health, life expectancy and of course also education; more information on that aspect is below.

In 1993 the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia) peacefully split into two states (one of which is now still the Czech Republic). Territorially, it is divided into 13 regions and the capital city, Prague (population over 1.3 million). The official language is Czech and the unit of currency is the Czech koruna (CZK); 1 euro is about 30 CZK.

Adapted from: “Thematic Review of Tertiary Education - Country Background Report - Czech Republic” by Centre for Higher Education Studies, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, Czech Republic, 2006, PDF – 144 pages

Documents of relevance: Czech Republic - useful information, by the Private College of Economic Studies, Ltd.

Education in Country

The nursery school (mateřská škola) offers pre-primary education to children aged from 3 to 6. It is not compulsory, but attendance is very high − almost 93 % of children of the relevant age in the last pre-school-year. Crèches (jesle) are intended for children up to the age of 3; these are not integrated into the education system but come under the responsibility of the Ministry of Health; with regard to the three-year maternity leave, the crèches are attended only by 0.5 % of a relevant age group.

Compulsory school attendance takes 9 years (6−15 years of age). Pupils (almost 80 % of the respective population) attend basic schools divided into two levels (primary level and lower secondary level). Starting with the second level there is the possibility of continuing compulsory schooling in secondary general schools (gymnázia), after the 5th year in eight-year secondary general schools, after the 7th year in six-year secondary general schools or conservatoires. After completing compulsory schooling, 96 % of the population (in relation to the age cohort of 15 to 18-year-old youths) continue studies in non-compulsory upper secondary education, namely, either in secondary general schools that, apart from the eight-year, six-year schools mentioned above, have also four-year programmes (more than 20 % of population) or in vocational and other secondary schools (48.5 % in four-year courses completed with a school-leaving examination /maturitní zkouška/, 23 % in two or three-year courses completed with an apprenticeship certificate /výuční list/, and in some other courses) or in conservatoires.

Those who have completed their upper secondary education in the fields of study requiring apprenticeship certificates can continue in ISCED 4A follow-up courses, which are completed with a school-leaving examination or they may extend their qualifications in shortened study courses.

Those who acquired education completed with a school-leaving examination (ISCED 3A or 4A), i.e. over 72 % of the population, can continue at a tertiary level, namely in tertiary professional schools (ISCED 5B), or higher education institutions (ISCED 5 and 6). Apart from that, school-leavers with the school-leaving examination (maturitní zkouška) have the possibility to extend their qualifications in post-secondary programmes of secondary schools (in shortened study courses).

Education reform

Schools

The gradual implementation of the Education Act of 2004 is focused on the curricular reform. The current curricular reform in schools is based on the Framework educational programmes (FEPs), which represent a central level of the curricular system and define educational goals and key competences as well as educational contents necessary for their achievement. On the basis of the FEP, schools prepare prepare their own school educational programmes. The system was validated in pilot schools. FEPs are now in different phases of development.

Educational Trends Supported by the Framework Education Programme can be summarised as follows:

• to take into consideration the pupils’ needs and potential when trying to achieve the educational objectives at elementary schools;
• to apply a more flexible organisation of education and foster the individualisation of learning in a ccordance with the pupils’ needs and potential * to create a wider offer of obligatory optional subjects for the development of pupils’ interests and individual capabilities;
• to create a positive social, emotional and working atmosphere based on motivation, cooperation and

engaging instructional methods;

• to orient changes in the assessment of the pupils towards continuous diagnostics, individual assessment of their achievements and a wider use of verbal assessment;
• to maintain, as long as possible, natural heterogeneous groups of pupils and weaken the reasons for segregating pupils into specialised classrooms and schools;
• to emphasise efficient cooperation with parents.

The draft Action Plan “School for the 21st Century and “The Strategy for ICT Development in Education for the period 2009-2013” state the importance of ICT in education. These documents describe several targets for ICT in education and identify financial resources to implement reforms in schools.

Administration and finance

Schools

Since 1st January 2005, the Czech education system has been operating on the base of new acts: Education Act that regulates education from pre-primary to upper secondary and tertiary professional education and its public administration, and Act on Educational Staff that regulates teacher profession on the same levels. Schools are administered in the frame of general administration. The responsibility is distributed among the central government, regions (which are 14) and communities. Regions are given a high degree of autonomy.

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports preserves the integrated state educational policy by formulating long-term policy objectives of education and development of the education system every four years; then they are submitted to the government. The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) above all:

• is responsible for the conception, state and development of the education system;
• determines the content of education: approves framework educational programmes which are the base for the development of school educational programmes;
• accredits educational programmes for tertiary professional schools and for higher education institutions
• is responsible for the state financing policy in education – for drawing up of the education budget and for determining of principles of its allocation;
• is in charge of the school register which has a constitutional meaning: only a registered institution has a right to provide recognized education and receives public resources;
• is an organising body of institutions for in-service training of teachers and facilities for institutional care.

Regions are responsible for education on their territory. Regional authorities formulate long-term policy objectives for their territory in compliance with national objectives every four years. Regions are organising bodies for upper secondary and tertiary professional schools.

The communities are responsible for compulsory schooling. They establish and administer basic schools and also nursery schools which are not compulsory.

All schools have the status of legal entities since 1st January 2003. School heads were given full responsibility for the quality of educational process, for financial management of the school, for appointing and dismissing teachers and for relations with the community and the public. By law, the school organising body must establish the School Council enabling parents, pupils, educational staff (except for the school head), and the public to participate in the administration of the school. Organising bodies appoint school heads on the basis of a tender; they can be dismissed only for reasons defined by law.

Private schools have been established since 1990 (at university level since 1999). The schools are mostly non-confessional; the usual legal form is a for-profit or non-profit grant-aided organisation. Both private and denominational schools represent 2.4 % of the total number of basic schools and 1.3 % of their pupils; for upper secondary schools it is 25.7 % of schools and 15.8 % of pupils; for tertiary professional schools it is 32.6 % of institutions and 32.0 % of students in 2009/10; for universities it is 63.4 % of institutions and 14.5 % of students in 2009/10. The funding of private schools is based on the same per capita principle, as for public schools. Basic subsidies (50-80 % of the amount granted to similar public institutions, according to the type) can be raised to 80-100 % if the school meets a set of criteria. Denominational schools receive the same funding as public schools directly from the MEYS.

Expenditure on education in the Czech Republic comes mainly from public funds.In line with administrative responsibility, the major part of state (central) funding comes from the budget of the Ministry of Education. Since 1992, the system of financing is on a 'per capita' basis rather than according to the type of institution, and most of the resources are allocated from the educational budget.

The Ministry of Education

• determines basic principles governing the funding of schools and school facilities;
• submits background information for the drawing up of the state budget;
• sets binding principles for the allocation of financial resources within the education sector;
• allocates funds to schools and school facilities under its direct control or under the direct control of the church;
• allocates through regions funds for institutions under the direct control of regions, as well as for schools run by other authorities;
• allocates funds beyond the set level to schools and school facilities run by all authorities, providing that they carry out a pilot verification of new forms and methods of teaching, as well as funds for development programmes announced by the Ministry of Education;
• allocates funds to public and, in a limited extent to private higher education institutions;
• checks the use of allocated funds.

Private and denominational schools are free to charge fees, although denominational schools do not usually do so. There are not any regulations on the amount of fees. Private schools receive a state contribution towards their running costs from the Ministry of Education through the regional authorities. Capital expenditures (meaning running costs that are not direct educational costs) are covered from school fees and other private sources. Public funding makes up the larger part of their overall resources.

Quality assurance

Schools

The evaluation of schools and school facilities is carried out by the [http://www.csicr.cz/en Czech School Inspectorate] (Česká školní inspekce) – one of the key institutions of the state administration in education. It falls within the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. This central control body is responsible for monitoring activities in pre-primary, basic (primary and lower secondary), upper secondary and tertiary education (with the exception of institutions of higher education) and school facilities. It is responsible for studying and evaluating the results of education, the quality of professional and pedagogical management, working conditions, teaching materials and equipment for public legal auditing, the use of the funds from the state budget and monitoring the observance of generally binding regulations. The head of the Inspectorate is the Chief School Inspector (ústřední školní inspektor) appointed by the Minister of Education. An annual report is released by the inspectorate, comprising the summary evaluation of the education system. The Education Act (and corresponding regulation) requires schools to carry out a self-evaluation at least once in two years which then constitutes the background for the evaluation and for the annual reports of the Czech School Inspectorate. Most schools prepared their self-evaluation for the first time in 2007. Evaluation of private and denominational schools is carried out by the Czech School Inspectorate under the same rules as for public schools. Thematically focused quick surveys, contracted by the Ministry of Education and implemented by the Institute for Information on Education, serve as background materials for evaluating the situation in the regional education system.

see also Annual report for school year 2009-2010

Information society

The Czech Statistical Office publishes every year a report on Information Society in the country. The more recent one is Information Society in Figures 2011

Sourced from European Commission - Information Society

Broadband

The number of high-speed Internet connections in the Czech Republic have more than tripled since 2005. Year on year, broadband take-up increased by 3 percentage points to reach 22% in 2010, but this is still below the EU average of 27%. Rural coverage of fixed broadband is high and more than 90% of all broadband lines are at least 2 Mbps. The Czech Republic has a high share of fixed wireless broadband. 61% of households had an Internet connection in 2010, i.e. three times more than in 2005, the vast majority of which were broadband (89%). Nevertheless, the Czech Republic is still significantly below the EU average of 70%. Business broadband take-up is also somewhat lower than the EU average, but Internet connection speeds have been increasing: in January 2006 only 18% of businesses had a connection speed of more than 2 Mb/s, but by January 2010 86% did.

Internet usage

In 2010, the Internet was used by 62% of the adult population, which has almost doubled over five years. Still, there are still somewhat lower proportions of regular and frequent Internet users in the population than the EU average. The Czech Republic still ranks quite low in take-up of Internet services. However, use of the Internet to find information about goods and services, reading online newspapers or magazines and Internet telephony are above the EU average. In 2010, every fourth Czech citizen purchased some product over the Internet compared to one in twenty in 2005, but still low compared to the EU average (40%).

eGovernment

The take-up of eGovernment by citizens is, at 23%, amongst the lowest in the EU. This is possibly related to the fact that the availability of public services is also low. For businesses, the picture is completely different: 100% of services are available online and take-up exceeds the EU average by 14 pp. Both individuals and businesses in the Czech Republic, when dealing with the public administration, use the Internet mostly for communication and searching for information. The filling in and sending forms via Internet is much less frequent.

Telecoms regulatory issues

A new state policy on electronic communications called “Digital Czech Republic” was adopted in early 2011. The policy set out national coverage at minimum speeds of 2 Mbps, and in the cities at a minimum of 10 Mbps, as the broadband target to be achieved by 2013. The process of market reviews continued at a steady pace. National authorities are active in preparing further spectrum allocations in the 800MHz, 1800 MHz and 2.6 GHz frequency bands.

References

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