Before the Velvet Revolution, fewer than one in 10 Czechs went on to study at the college or university level.
Despite concerted efforts to boost the numbers of people who have access to higher education, only 306,000 students enrolled last autumn — a record 2.98 percent of the total population, compared to 1.81 percent in 1998.
Although there has been a 63.5 percent increase in the number of university level students since 1998, the percentage is still quite low compared to other developed countries. “The trend of an increasing number of students is definitely positive and must speed up,” said Petr Matějů, chairman of the Institute for Social and Economic Analyses (ISEA). “At the moment, only 28 percent of Czech people aged between 18 and 20 attend university, while the OECD average is 42 percent.”
With the Czech Republic looking to become a “knowledge economy” rather than competing internationally with its relatively low wages, the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports is looking to boost those figures. “Since 1989, every year the number of students accepted to university has increased, but it’s still not enough,” said Lubomíra Černá, the director of the ministry’s Department of External Affairs and Communication. “We’re focused on increasing the number of students at our universities, especially in bachelor’s degree programs.”
As of last year, there were over 40 accredited private colleges and universities and 29 such public institutions. According to Miroslav Svoboda, vicedean for students and academic affairs at the Faculty of Economics and Public Administration at the University of Economics in Prague (VŠE), there’s room for still more. “There’s a huge demand on the market, caused by the still-reduced number of Czech universities, compared to the European Union average,” he said.
Over the past decade, the total budget for public universities has more than doubled. According to data from the ministries of education and finance, in 1995 some Kč 9.5 billion (€ 317 million) was spent on public universities, rising to Kč 21.4 billion in 2004.
This year’s budget for tertiary education increased 14 percent over the 2005 level. According to Matějů, 90 percent of the budget for tertiary education, including research, comes from public money.
But the increased spending hasn’t addressed some educators’ concerns.
“On the one hand, there’s more money for studies, so the universities are interested in following the trend,” said Svoboda. “On the other hand, we don’t want to have more students in the future than we have today. We’re confronted with limited [classroom] space and [too few] teachers and despite the money received, the administrative issues don’t allow a further increase.”
The VŠE has seen a rise in enrollment numbers; from 2000 to 2004, the total number of students increased by 14 percent (from 13,045 students to 14,858). “There are faculties asking for additional students and the university must listen to their requests,” Svoboda added.
Prague’s Charles University, the oldest and most prestigious in the Czech Republic, also saw a 14 percent increase in enrollment. According to the university’s data, the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by Charles University more than doubled from 2001 to 2004, from 4,486 to 9,328. The number of PhDs awarded increased by 25 percent. At the same time, the number of master’s degrees awarded dropped by 10 percent. Similar changes have taken place, with a few exceptions, in all the major public universities in the Czech Republic.
Private institutions are also seeing higher numbers. “The number of students has slightly increased, both in bachelor [degree] and master’s degree [programs],” said Mirka Pangracová Perst, chief recruitment manager for the University of New York in Prague (UNYP). “This is because we cover a segment of the market that’s much in demand — business, media communications and public relations — but also because of the programs taught in English. Companies understand the need for more specialized people in these fields, so the MBA program developed, too,” she said.
According to the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ), from 1993 to 2004 the number of working people with higher degrees grew by 33 percent. Although the unemployment figures for university graduates also grew during that time period, from 20.3 percent to 23.4 percent, the rate is not “worryingly” high, Matějů said.
“I don’t see any problems on the labor market for the next 10 years because the market is developing and companies need more and more specialists with flexible knowledge, which isn’t provided by secondary schools. Only university studies offer this kind of flexibility,” he said.