Approximately 114,000 applicants submitted applications for the uniform entrance exams for matriculation studies at secondary schools and multi-year gymnasiums. Last year, 103,000 children signed up for the exams organized by Cermat.
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In this school year, according to data from the Ministry of Education, about 106,000 pupils are studying in the ninth grade of elementary schools, which is roughly 33 percent more than four years ago. In addition to children from the demographically strong class, refugees from Russia-attacked Ukraine are also applying to secondary schools this year, who will have adjusted conditions for the entrance exams. “Approximately 114,000 applicants applied for the first regular term of the uniform entrance exams and 98,000 applicants for the second term. The applicant has the option of submitting two applications,” said Patáková.
The number of schoolchildren completing primary education has been increasing in recent years. In the last school year, 95,198 children studied in the ninth grade, a year earlier it was 90,286 and, for example, in the 2018/2019 school year, only 79,703 ninth graders. Already last year, many people interested in studying at secondary schools complained about the lack of places in matriculation subjects. The problem mainly concerned Prague, this year experts expect an excess of people interested in education in other cities as well. The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Education, Aneta Lednová, said earlier that there are enough places in secondary schools in the country. In total, in January this year, they had 687,512 places, i.e. the most in the last three years, of which roughly 200,000 places were unoccupied. According to the spokesperson, the problems with the overpressure of applicants are only in some regions and fields of study.
This year, the first-year exams for four-year secondary education fields with a matriculation exam and for extension study fields will be held on April 13 and 14, on multi-year gymnasium on April 17 and 18. The unified exam consists of a written test in the Czech language and mathematics.
The number of applicants to study at Czech secondary schools will also increase this year by Ukrainians who came to the Czech Republic because of the war in their homeland. The resort previously reported on its website that in September 2022, 16,761 Ukrainian asylum seekers studied at the second level of primary schools. Refugees from a war-affected country will, by the authority's decision, take the standardized secondary school entrance exams in a modified form.
In the 2021 school year /2022, according to statistics from the Ministry of Education, a total of 69,868 students studied in the first years of four-year grammar schools and in the first years of four-year matriculation courses at secondary vocational schools. 10,854 children studied at multi-year gymnasiums in classes corresponding to the first year of secondary school.
In 2020, 69,068 applicants took the unified entrance exams for four-year courses and 24,900 applicants for multi-year gymnasiums. In 2021, schools did not have to hold uniform entrance exams, so Cermat did not get a complete overview of the number of applicants.