The original article requires translation.
The Ministry of Education has decided to stop the experimental verification of blended learning, i.e. alternating face-to-face and distance learning, on June 30 of this year. The program was supposed to run until 2028. For some schools that were part of the testing, this step means the end of teaching. For some parents, it means an unexpected search for a new school for their children.
The institutions involved are to end this teaching by June 30th at the latest. “I consider the ministry’s decision to end a long-term project overnight and in the middle of the work being done a fatal failure of the state as a predictable partner,” said Jon Šotola, co-owner of Scio, a company focused on children’s education.
Scio will have to close its Expeditionary Basic Scio School because of this. “Our children come from different parts of the country. Transferring back to full-time education while they are enrolled in our school is not realistic for most of them,” Martina Lichtenbergová from the Scio School management told Novinka.
According to spokesman Ondřej Macura, the ministry’s decision to halt the program was prompted by an evaluation of the program’s progress to date. “The sample involved did not provide a sufficiently representative basis for broader systemic conclusions, which was the original purpose of the pilot testing,” he wrote to Novinka.
The pilot verification of blended learning began in primary and secondary schools in response to experiences with distance learning during the Covid pandemic in February 2021. Since January this year, only primary and elementary art schools have been participating in it. However, distance learning may not be used in the first to third grades of primary schools. According to the ministry’s data, 23 schools were involved in the pilot verification as of February this year.
The headmaster of the Erazim Touzapo school, Matěj Frgala, called the ministry’s move a “ministerial blunder”. “We have a backup plan that allows us to continue in Touzapo next year, even if it is quite complicated and expensive for us,” he said. He added that this change will also mean a funding shortfall, which the school will cover from its own funds.
In addition to representatives of the affected schools, parents also expressed their outrage over the termination of the pilot testing. Some of them were put in a situation where they did not know where to place their children a month before the holidays.
share