Czech Republic/OER

Overview

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 population is 10,562,000.

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.

Further information

For further general information see Wikipedia:Czech Republic/OER.

Education in Czech Republic/OER

For a general description of education in Czech Republic/OER see Education:Czech Republic/OER.

e-learning

For a description more focussed to e-learning see E-learning:Czech Republic/OER.

Internet in Czech Republic/OER

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. (1)

Internet in Education

The national document “A Strategy for ICT Development in ducation 2009-2013”, adopted by the czech government, outlines nine main programmes to support ICT development in education in the next years. The main goal is to support schools in reaching a high level of use of ICT both in the majority of subjects and at the same time as a standard tool for staff and students. Amongst these nine programmes is the Connectivity Programme, which identifies support for high-speed internet connection by MoEYS as a basic condition for the further development of ICT usage at schools. (1)

OER Initiatives in Czech Republic/OER

In its response to the OECD questionnaire, the Czech Republic stated that since they fully support the concept of lifelong learning, their involvement in the OER movement and its promotion was a natural step further in this effort. They also reported that have chosen to focus their OER efforts on young children (ISCED sectors 1 to 3). (2)

National OER initiatives

The RVP Metodicky Portal is an educational portal to Czech open educational resources (OER) targeting teachers. It is a government-funded initiative by the Czech Republic and the European Social Fund, and is run as part of a research project by the Institute of Education in Prague and the National Institute of Vocational Education. The project aims to provide "systematic support for teachers in teaching methodology and didactics, development of learning communities," and more "effective ways of learning." (1)

References

1. ReVica/VISCED page for the Czech Republic (http://virtualcampuses.eu/index.php/Czech_Republic#Virtual_initiatives_in_schools)

Reports

2. Hylén, J. et al. (2012), “Open Educational Resources: Analysis of Responses to the OECD Country Questionnaire”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 76, OECD Publishing. http://oer.unescochair-ou.nl/?wpfb_dl=38

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