Education

 

Education system

 

Secondary schools

As soon as they complete their nine-year elementary school education, children have to decide what secondary school to choose and what career to pursue in their lives. The Czech Republic boasts nearly X1 1,500 secondary schools X1 offering hundreds of study and apprenticeship programmes. A vast majority of young people favour schools where their studies are completed by the school leaving examination.

Every child may lodge an application for admission to up to three secondary schools. The admission is only possible if the child has completed the primary education level, has good knowledge of Czech and has succeeded in the entrance examination. Some of the secondary vocational schools have recently abandoned the entrance examination and admit students according to their grades at primary schools.

Grammar schools and lyceums
These represent the most demanded types of secondary schools. Their students take the school leaving exam and, thanks to the knowledge they have acquired, they are well prepared for studies at universities or colleges.

Secondary vocational schools
These have witnessed a drop in demand recently. These educational institutions prepare their students for the performance of a certain vocation. They are suitable for students who are manually skilful rather than academic types or for those who purposefully focus on a particular practical field. The studies at secondary vocational schools may be completed either by an examination resulting in the acquisition of a vocational certificate which authorises the holder to perform a certain craft or by the school leaving examination.

Conservatories and artistic schools
Pupils also show a relatively keen interest in the study at secondary schools completed by a diploma examination, i.e. artistic schools and conservatories. These are intended solely for children with dramatic, musical, dancing or fine-art talent. The admission procedure involves talent examinations where the student is required to demonstrate his or her talent for the selected field.

Secondary schools and foreigners
Regarding the study at all types of secondary schools and grammar schools, foreigners are required to observe the same rules as Czech children. This means that, for example, wherever Czech children do not pay for study, foreigners’ children will not pay, either. Foreigners may even enjoy a small advantage as they are not required to do entrance tests in the Czech language; they are only invited to an oral interview where they should demonstrate their ability to use the Czech language to respond to questions related to every-day situations. Besides, the Czech Republic's Ministry of Education has issued an instruction according to which teachers are not required to give students marks for the Czech language if these students have not mastered the language sufficiently. More information about the conditions of study at Czech schools is available here.