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The following OECD assessment and recommendations summarise Chapter 4 of the Economic Survey of the Czech Republic 2006 published on 8 June 2006.
Contents
More resources are needed to deal with the expansion of tertiary education
The rapid expansion of tertiary education requires more resources and better incentives for both students and higher education institutions. The universities have been responding somewhat to the changing environment, notably new 3-year vocationally oriented degrees are being introduced. The introduction of tuition fees for students in public universities that at least partially reflect the cost of tertiary courses would make for better decision making by students and faster reaction of universities to changing demands. If tuition fees are introduced they should be accompanied by publicly supported student loans in which repayments are conditional on graduate income. This diversification of funding for tertiary education would also help universities cope with further rises in student numbers. Any increase in funding has to be linked to output quality monitoring and evaluation.
Demand and supply developments in education
1. The enrolment rate is calculated as the ratio of students enrolled in bachelors, master and doctoral programmes divided by the population of those aged 20-24 years.
Source: Secretariat estimations and projections based on data from the Ministry of Education and United Nations, World Population Prospects 1950-2050 (2002 Revision).
Secondary school reform needs to help increase tertiary-level enrolment,
reduce streaming and increase efficiency
Secondary schools enjoy a good reputation and benefit from a well established institutional tradition. However, further changes in focus and flexibility in the system are required to better cope with changing skill requirements in the labour market.
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In secondary education, a new system of common national leaving exams in some subject areas is being gradually introduced, bringing welcome reduction in the diversity of final exam tests. The new system will make exam results more useful input for prospective employers. In addition, the system ought to play a bigger role in university entrance by cutting back the need for university-specific entrance exams that not only make the admission process cumbersome but also add to social segregation in tertiary education. However, less reliance on entrance exams requires closer consultation with universities to ensure secondary school leaving exam results are a useful input for assessing prospective students.
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Wider access is needed to the general courses in secondary schools that provide options for entering tertiary education. This could be achieved by making these courses more widely available in the secondary technical schools and by equalising the quality standards with those of the four year gymnasia. More generally, choices could be broadened if upper secondary school curricula were differentiated among broad subject-based streams and if students were allowed to transfer both between and within schools more easily. In addition, the streaming of a minority of students into elite publicly funded schools from age eleven should be phased out, as already outlined in strategic documents by the Ministry of Education.
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Further decentralisation of responsibility for schooling since the early 2000s has raised the importance of output measurement and benchmarking. A recently introduced assessment system has merits but its effectiveness needs to be raised, in particular by allowing the publication of results and by giving the inspectorate more scope in information gathering. The assessment and evaluation system should be expanded to cover schools, types of school, regions and the entire school system. This should in particular assess how graduates are prepared for employment and further education.
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In the teaching profession, motivation is widely reported as low. Encouraging greater use of financial rewards for good performance is part of the solution. In addition, more in-service training would ensure that teachers adapt to change in the secondary school system, particularly if students' access to general education is widened, and should also increase job satisfaction.
Both tertiary and secondary education systems have to
cater better for adult learners
It is necessary to boost the participation of middle and older age groups in education; in particular motivating those with low education and qualification is important. The education system is too rigidly geared towards standard pathways of learning. Access to education, notably for adults who want to take either secondary or tertiary level courses, needs to be increased and a greater range of programmes is needed. This requires a more systematic approach to continuing education that establishes funding mechanisms, quality assurance, information and guidance as well as making changes to current arrangements in the framework of qualifications.
How to obtain this publication
The Policy Brief (pdf format) in English and Czech can be downloaded. It contains the OECD assessment and recommendations, but not all of the charts included on the above pages.
The complete edition of the Economic Survey of the Czech Republic 2006 is available from:
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SourceOECD for subscribing institutions and many libraries
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OLISnet, under "Publication Locator", for government officials with accounts (suscribe)
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Additional information
For further information please contact the Czech Republic Desk at the OECD Economics Department at webmaster@oecd.org. The OECD Secretariat's report was prepared by Philip Hemmings and Alessandro Goglio under the supervision of Andreas Wörgötter. The drafting team was assisted by Lubomir Chaloupka (on secondment from the Czech Ministry of Finance) and Edward Whitehouse (OECD pensions specialist).
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