In September 2003, there were only 90,300 first graders to begin the new school year, this year there are 93,200; the MŠMT estimates that this positive trend will also continue in the coming years.

 

Even so, the total number of elementary school students is decreasing. In 2003, there were 991,900 pupils. This year the number of students reached 881,200, but next year it’s expected to be 3.8 percent lower, a decline of almost 35,000 pupils.

 

“We have problems with the secondary schools because the number of births dramatically decreased after the fall of communism,” said Jana Straková, a member of the Institute for Social and Economic Analyses (ISEA), emphasizing that, after the Velvet Revolution, Czechs discovered traveling and career advancement, which encouraged them to start a family at an older age than previously. “Today we have more children in nursery schools, so the situation will improve,” Straková said.

 

The decrease in the number of pupils fuels the fears of those who claim that the Czech Republic has fewer students than the European average (see “Budget up, higher education access still low,” CBW, Feb.6, 2006) and will be shortly confronted with the lack of a highly educated, skilled labor force, despite the country’s desire to become a “knowledge economy.”

 

New Minister of Education Miroslava Kopicová, former director of the National Education Fund (NVF), showed a greate interest in the development of tertiary studies.

 

“My priority will undoubtedly be to support universities, science and research,” she declared at her inauguration. That’s why one of her first steps was the appointment of Petr Matějů, ISEA’s president as a new deputy for universities.

 

In the sector of primary education, Kopicová declared she would like to expand on the ideas of her predecessor, Petra Buzková. “I’d like to continue bringing further reforms to the secondary schools,” she said. According to Buzková’s reforms, primary schools will have new study curricula and will design their study programs individually.

 

“Schools must take responsibility for how they’ll teach their own students in the future,” ISEA’s Straková said, adding that, complementarily, an important focus should be the help offered to teachers to understand and implement the reforms. “A priority for the Czech educational system is to train its teachers and make them understand that their primary responsibility is to meet the individual needs of individual children,” she said. “Teachers must learn how to motivate every single child in how to achieve the highest educational level possible.”

 

Straková emphasized that in the Czech Republic, the education system still encourages discrimination between children coming from educated and uneducated families. “Right now, the child receives motivation to study in the family rather than at school,” she said.

 

The new minister agreed “We need to focus more on the preparation of teachers,” Kopicová said, adding that both active teachers and those who are now in training deserve the ministry’s attention. “These teachers should have access to programs that could prepare them for the present challenges of the profession, with a higher accent on psychology and a more pragmatic approach,” she said.

 

“If implemented correctly ... the reform might bring a higher number of students,” Straková said, adding that it’s also necessary to modernize university study programs in order to make them more intellectually challenging for students. “The negative aspects of the educational system are valid for all of its levels, as currently it’s not built on creativity or on individual development.”