Due to budget cuts, schools should limit the number of teaching hours, so that there will be less time for gifted, more narrowly focused pupils, but also for preparation for entrance exams or graduation.
Due to budget cuts, schools should limit the number of teaching hours, so that there will be less time for gifted, more narrowly focused pupils, but also for preparation for entrance exams or graduation.
"If the number of lessons will be limited, some schools will stop dividing classes into smaller groups in Czech or mathematics. These things move students. It helps to increase the chances of admission to secondary schools or those who need closer attention," Luboš Zajíc, head of the Association of Elementary School Principals, told Práv.
"These are the things that really add up to quality," he added. In the same way, schools have the opportunity to prepare seminars for different years aimed at groups of different interested parties.
However, once the number of funded hours is reduced, many elementary schools will have to cancel individualized programs. It is still unclear how many schools will be affected.
The Ministry of Education distributes the money according to the number of hours taught. At the same time, it sets the ceiling. The resort only reimburses hours actually learned. The savings are supposed to result from the fact that the ceiling will be set lower in the next school year. According to the latest data, elementary schools use their options to an average of 92 percent. This means that there is a high number of those approaching a hundred.
Many schools, however, cannot use the given possibilities to the full, because they do not have the space, or they cannot find teachers for it. How much the funding ceilings will be reduced is still under comment.
Principals of secondary schools are scratching their heads, where the Ministry of Education's initial proposal aims to cut hours by 15 percent. According to the Ministry, schools use the given options on average only 82 percent of the time. But according to Jiří Zajíček, head of the Union of School Associations, the statistics are distorted.
"There are a number of schools that provide practical training in companies where there is an instructor paid by the company. And these hours cannot be seen by the Ministry. In one school from Karlovy Vary, about 90 percent are unlearned, but only 77 percent are reported for the ministry," described Právu.
Therefore, the proposed restriction would affect schools that conduct practical lessons in their premises with a teacher paid from the school budget. "Then they could cancel the practical teaching," he said. In addition, even schools that send pupils to companies are not sure that this will be the case next year as well.
Zajíček's secondary vocational school would then, for example, have to cut German and French lessons. In addition to English, other foreign languages are only recommended at secondary schools, but at the same time highly demanded in practice.
The gymnasium could cancel seminars that focus on matriculation subjects according to the students' interests. Seminars for those who already know which university major they want to apply for are also popular.
At the same time, tandem teaching, where two teachers work in one class, is slowly gaining ground in secondary and elementary schools. "Many entertaining or educational programs are also moderated in pairs. It works the same for students and children," explained Práva, a secondary school teacher from Prague.