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After long and difficult negotiations the government on Wednesday approved a bill aimed at thoroughly reforming the Czech Republic's education system. Among other things, the bill envisages more importance being placed on the creative use of information by school pupils and less emphasis on rote-learning. Furthermore, the current "maturita" school-leaving exams would be replaced from 2008. The government bill is expected to raise some debate when it goes before Parliament.

President Vaclav Klaus has expressed his support for the mission to send Czech Special Forces troops to Afghanistan. The president made the statement on Tuesday after speaking with the commander of the Army's General Staff Pavel Stefka and Defence Minister Miroslav Kostelka. With regards to Afghanistan Mr Klaus said he had been given detailed plans on the mission including information on special tasks. The Afghanistan mission, already approved by Parliament, will see more than 100 elite soldiers from Czech Special Forces sent to the combat zone to help weed out remaining Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, as part of the U.S.-led operation 'Enduring Freedom'. At the same time a recent CVVM poll revealed that some 75 percent of Czechs disagreed with the soldiers being sent abroad.

Amid rising uncertainty about the stability of the ruling coalition, the deputy chairman of the opposition Communist Party, Jiri Dolejs, has said that, under certain conditions, the Communists would be willing to support a minority Social Democrat government. Speaking in a televised debate on Sunday, Mr Dolejs said that if the Social Democrats behaved as a left-wing party, the Communists would grant them tacit support. The Communist Party and the Social Democrats would have 111 seats in the 200-member Chamber of Deputies.

President Vaclav Klaus and Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla have laid wreaths at the grave of the first president of Czechoslovakia Tomas Garrigue Masaryk to commemorate the 154th anniversary of his birth. Both politicians said they considered Tomas Garrigue Masaryk as the most significant personality in Czech history. The founder of the Czechoslovak state T. G. Masaryk was born on March 7, 1850 in the South Moravian town of Hodonin and died at the presidential Lany Chateau in 1937.