International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
THE BACKGROUND: PRIMARY, SECONDARY AND TERTIARY
LANGUAGE STUDY IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Primary, secondary and tertiary education in the Czech Republic is offered in the private and public form, but
with public education much more wide-spread and directly funded. For a general structure of the educational
system in the Czech Republic see Figure 1.
Figure 10 The structure of the Czech educational system [25]
According to [16] the study of a first foreign language is compulsory at the age of 8, and the vast majority of
students at elementary schools study English as a second language, followed by German, Spanish and French.
Almost all students who have studied at gymnasia study English. At technical or vocational schools 74% of
students study English.
These choices continue on to university, even at technical universities which make up over 25% of statesupported
universities. Almost all of these 7 technical universities (VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava,
Technical University of Liberec, University of West Bohemia in Plzen, University of Pardubice, Czech
Technical University in Prague, Brno University of Technology and Institute of Technology and Business in
České Budějovice) in the Czech Republic have economic/business faculties attached to them. An example of
language study preferences at VSB-TUO, which are similar to preferences at other Czech technical universities,
can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1 An Overview of Languages Study at VSB-TUO.
Source: Management of the Language Department of VSB-TUO
2013/2014 Winter Semester VSB-TUO Language Department Full-Time Bachelor Study
VSB-TUO
Overall number of students according to faculty
Faculty Year English German Russian French Spanish Czech Total Faculty
1st 848 52 101 1001
Economic 2 nd 659 186 252 47 89 1233
3rd 35 125 283 42 88 573 2807
Electrical 1 st 660 660
Engineering 2 nd 508 2 7 517
Computer
Science
1177
Mining 1 st 581 16 597
Geology 2 nd 284 51 335
Tourism 3 rd 4th 20 19 39 971
Civil 1 st 370 20 390
Engineering 2 nd . 194 23 217 607
Mechanic 2 nd 301 24 325
Engineering 3 rd 147 4 151 476
Metallurgy 1 st . 248 13 261
Materials 2 nd 148 11 159
Engineering
420
Safety 1 st 234 234
Engineering 2 nd 131 131 365
University 1 st 38 38
Study 2 nd 13 13
Program
51
Total 5399 527 656 89 203 0 6874
% Rate 78.5% 7.7% 9.5% 1.3% 3.0% 0% 100
Erasmus 82 82
PhD 59 15 20 94
1010