In CZ, we will not cancel inclusion, we may postpone the education reform

In the future, children could submit not three, but five applications for secondary schools. Education Minister Robert Plaga (for ANO) said this in an interview with Seznam Zprávy. Maybe in two years.

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Inclusion will not be abolished. However, the planned education reform will probably be postponed. This is what Education Minister Robert Plaga (for ANO) said in an interview with Seznam Zprávy.

After a break, he is returning to top politics. And not even a few weeks into the new government, he has already managed to significantly distance himself from his coalition partners from the SPD, for their statements against Ukraine or questioning the Russian attacks in Vrbětice.

“I would much rather the coalition partners focus on the substantive agenda and their respective departments, and not on some extravagances,” says Plaga.

There is more than enough work in education. The future of the education reform is unclear, inclusion is to change, there is pressure on the education budget, but also necessary changes to the admissions process for secondary schools. We ask about all of this in the interview.

We are in the middle of high school application season. Are you satisfied with how the entire admissions process is currently working?

It doesn’t matter whether I’m satisfied or not. We simply have a valid law and I’m trying to provide maximum support to students from the ministry in the current system. I would like their school elections not to be lost, so that they don’t make mistakes in prioritization, which is why we communicate intensively via social networks. During this election period, however, I would like to move towards students first taking tests and only then submitting applications based on the results. Not blindly like today.

Of course, nothing has changed this year, and we can hardly expect any change next year, so 2028?

I would like it to be from 2028… But I have to digress a bit here – I greatly appreciate Mirek Krejčí (former head of Cermat, author of the application digitalization system, today a Motorists’ MP, ed. note) for his guerrilla action, but there was simply a big risk that it would not work out.

So you don’t want to proceed like this?

I really don’t want to do it like that. It’s essential for me to first ensure the feasibility of the change, rather than shouting something and then finding out if it will work. Legislative change is needed, the system needs to be programmed, and when I started with the example of Mirek Krejčí, I also piloted everything first, because all pupils in primary schools would take the exams, which would be a big change. So I can imagine that everything will be ready in 2028, but if it’s a year later, but everything works correctly and well, it’s not that essential for me.

And will there be more applications?

I was just about to finish saying that. If we turn the system around, it would make sense to increase the number of applications from three to five to make the choice more precise. Someone will say, well, if it’s five, why not ten? But there are schools that specialize in the school part of the admissions process, and I wouldn’t like to take away this option from them. Imagine if a student were to take 10 school admissions processes, that’s admissions.

In a recent interview for Seznam Zprávy, Tomáš Protivínský, the author of the algorithm for ranking applicants among schools, says that this could also be addressed, because thanks to the knowledge of the results, schools could only invite applicants with a certain score to the school part.

You asked about my initial idea, which is to expand the number of applications to five. If we find a technical solution, I certainly won’t prevent there being more.

General education is the right path

And what about the structure of secondary schools? Of course, it is mainly a matter for the regions as school founders. But we are at the tail of the developed countries of the world in terms of the share of general education. We have few university students even compared to other countries, which makes it difficult to build a modern economy.

I completely agree with how you described it. I will communicate with the regions about this even more intensively than in the past. It worked for us when we went to the regions together with the Czech School Inspectorate and discussed data on the structure of local secondary schools and demographic developments. So we guided the regions a bit methodically, although the decision was always up to them.

When I recently asked about the structure of secondary schools in individual regions, most said they were satisfied with the way their secondary schools are stratified.

The tool we have is a long-term plan. And it shows what should happen in the field. But I think it is right that the regions decide on capacities, and not the Ministry of Education with directives from the center. So I would rather explain to the regions that the structure of their secondary schools may not be completely fine, even if they think so. But now I will reframe the debate a bit.

We have a ten-year-long heated discussion here between the trades on the one hand and the grammar school and lyceum on the other. It is a tug-of-war, but it makes no sense. The world is changing dynamically and the general component of education should be what companies, parents and, above all, children want. Because thanks to it, today’s child will be able to adapt to the changing world during his or her working career. We do not produce employees for specific companies.

It’s not a matter of whether it’s a trade or a grammar school. The general foundation must be included in both grammar schools and lyceums, as well as vocational schools and training institutes. This is how the innovation of the subject system of secondary schools was conceived, but unfortunately it is not finished even after four years.

The innovation was supposed to significantly simplify the range of secondary school majors from some 283 to dozens. However, the last proposal was significantly over a hundred. You said at the last school committee that 40 majors would be enough for you. So instead of being a bricklayer, carpenter or plumber, one would simply apply for the construction major?

This is how the idea of ​​innovation was declared even by the previous government, but the very essence of the intention escaped. The basis of the innovation of the subject system is to define which subjects at vocational schools carry a general basis, and these are not just Czech and mathematics, and to devote the beginning of studies to the development of this basis. But this has not been worked out. So the question of how many subjects there will be in the final is not that important. I would not like to say for myself that there will be 40, when it should only be a formal change.

Inclusion awaits revision

Has your coalition colleague from Motorists Matěj Gregor already been to you to identify unnecessary university majors whose studies will no longer be free?

I think we already said this when negotiating the government’s program statement. Motorists came up with it, but if we look at it rationally, most universities have institutional accreditation. This means that they can determine for themselves what they will study, provided that the conditions are met. I would also like to see in reality how the deletion of 10,000 study programs would take place. In my opinion, the right way is to financially motivate universities to recruit more students into fields that are needed by society as a whole, such as the program to increase the number of doctors, which we started, or non-medical professions under the previous government.

With this question, I wanted to help a little bit because the parties in your government went into the election with a lot of things they want to abolish, for example the often mentioned inclusion. So when will you abolish this?

The government’s program statement says – the abolition of ineffective elements of inclusion and its revision. I stand behind that. I don’t want to lead the debate based on impressions or ideologies. Whether it’s an ultra-pro-inclusive view on the one hand, or the statement “let’s abolish inclusion” on the other. In the program statement, we say that we will increase the capacity of special schools and special classes, because in some places they are lacking. But it definitely doesn’t mean that we will force 120 thousand children into them with the support measures that we now have in regular schools.

So what do you think of an inclusion review?

The neuralgic point is the teaching assistants. First of all, I want to say that teaching assistants have a place in our education system. However, it is often only about formal support for the child, which does not actually take place. As early as 2021, I had prepared the parameterization of teaching assistants. Part of it is their professionalization. If we want the system to work, teaching assistants should be parameterized for the school, not tied to the student. And be part of the entire school team, which in my understanding also includes the school counseling center, i.e. special education teacher, social educator, school psychologist and other support professions.