Nursery schools provide pre-school education to children aged three until they enter basic school. School attendance is not compulsory.

Basic schools provide compulsory 9-year education to all eligible children usually from their 6 years of age. They are divided into the first stage and the second stage. The first stage takes five years and the second stage four years. The last four or two years of compulsory nine-year school attendance can be finished at eight-year or six-year grammar schools or dancing conservatoires.

Grammar schools provide full secondary education during four, six or eight years of study. The education is focussed on the preparation of its pupils for university studies in particular and completed by the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE).

Secondary technical schools offer four-year subject fields completed by GCSE and two-year or four-year subject fields completed by final examination. The aim of these schools is to prepare their pupils for professional activities in practice. A specific type of the secondary technical school is performing arts schools where singing, music, dancing and drama are studied. They usually have 6 to 8 grades and the study is completed by final examinations (they thus provide higher professional education).

Secondary vocational schools prepare their pupils for manual occupations and professional activities. They offer two-year and three-year subject fields completed by final examination and four-year subject fields completed by GCSE.

Vocational schools prepare their pupils for manual occupations in two-year subject fields with specially adjusted syllabuses for pupils who finished basic school in lower grades. The graduates receive certificates of apprenticeship.

Higher professional schools provide two-year to three-and-a-half-year study to graduates from subject fields completed by GCSE. Graduates from higher professional schools receive diplomas.

Universities: citizens who have completed their full secondary general education or full secondary technical education can study at university (except for arts where this requirement need not be met if the applicant is exceptionally talented). Universities offer single-stage or two-stage study and doctoral study. The single stage study has either three-year bachelor subject fields or four-year to six-year master ones. Certain universities provide two-stage study where graduates from the bachelor study programme can continue in two-year to three-year master study programme. The three-year study is completed by state examination and the four-year to six-year study also by the defending of thesis. This can be followed up by a doctoral study programme focussed on science, independent creative activities in the area of research, development or art. The standard duration of the doctoral study is three years.

Special schools and establishments are designed for children and pupils who are mentally and/or physically handicapped, with impaired hearing, vision and/or speech, with development disorders and/or or are placed in schools established in hospitals, sanatoria and therapeutical establishments as well as in reform schools and correctional facilities, and cannot attend standard schools because of their handicaps.

Pre-school education is provided to such children and pupils by special nurseries.

Basic compulsory education is provided by special basic schools, remedial schools, auxiliary schools or preparatory stages.

Secondary education is provided by special grammar schools, secondary schools, home economics schools and special vocational schools.

Special educational establishments include children’s educational institutions, educational institutions for young people, educational institutions for children and young people, educational institutions for underage mothers, institutions with educational-therapeutic system, and departments with educational-therapeutic system.


Breakdown by form of study

Secondary education breaks down into initial study and other forms of study. The other forms of study include distance study, evening study, external study and combined study.

Grammar schools organize initial study, external study, distance study and evening study.

Secondary technical schools and secondary vocational schools provide, in addition to initial study, external study, evening study and combined study.

Higher professional schools provide initial study and distance study only.

Universities provide full-time study as well as distance study and combined study in the framework of other forms of study.



Notes on tables


Table 21-1. Nursery schools

Beginning from the school year 1997/98, only nursery schools are included, while these figures also included the number of crčche/nursery school combinations in preceding years.

The data on nursery schools with all-day operation exclude nursery schools with half-day operation and residential nursery schools.


Table 21-6. Pupils and teachers at basic schools: by grade

The number of pupils who left basic schools in the previous school year includes pupils who completed compulsory education and entered multiple-year grammar schools, dancing schools, etc.


Table 21-8, 21-12 and 21-21. Secondary education

The data refer to the secondary schools, excluding secondary schools administered by other ministries than the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the CR, special secondary schools and secondary schools established with special educational institutions (grammar schools, secondary technical schools, secondary vocational schools, training schools) for all forms of study.


Table 21-10. Pupils at four-year grammar schools: initial study

The number of pupils (incl. girls) broken down by grade of initial study only includes pupils in the four-year cycle of initial study because of comparability with the data on the number of pupils in initial study at secondary technical schools or secondary vocational schools.


Table 21-18. Children and pupils at special schools

Figures in this table are broken down by handicap/disability (see Decree No. 127/1997 Coll., on Special Schools, of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the CR).


Table 21-27. Pupils at language schools: secondary school graduates

The table includes pupils attending one-year daily language courses organized within the meaning of Decree No. 183/1998 Coll., of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the CR, as last amended (No. 284/2001 Coll.). The figures in the table refer to both state and private language schools.


Table 21-36. Students at and graduates from private universities: school year 2004/2005

Act No. 111/1998 Coll., (on institutions of higher education) effective as from 1 January 1999 made it possible to establish private universities, which provide bachelor study courses fully paid by students.


Tables 21-39 and 21-40. State/local budget expenditure on education: 2004

Figures on expenditures of state budget and local budgets (budgets of districts and municipalities) on education come from financial statements on incomes and expenditures of budgetary organizations, obtained by the CZSO from the Ministry of Finance of the CR. They respect the functional breakdown of expenditures and cover the expenditures included in divisions 31 and 32 (Education) of the budget classification in force, detailed as shown in the legend of the tables.

The headings of the tables correspond to the type breakdown of the budget classification in force.

The CZSO publications draw on data provided by the Institute for Information on Education.




The data listed in the tables are fully comparable with the data published in the statistical yearbooks of previous years.

a) group 3 - LABOUR, SOCIAL STATISTICS, subgroup 33 - Education, Culture, Public Health:

• „Školy a školská zařízení za školní rok 2004/2005“ – June 2005, and

b) group 1 – COMPREHENSIVE INFORMATION, subgroup 11 – Analyses:

• – “Vývoj středních odborných učilišť v letech 1993 až 2003” – January 2005.