New school year starts on Monday

Czech school children and secondary school students return to classrooms on Monday. This year, there will be around 108,000 first graders, which is significantly fewer than in the previous years.

As of this September, children who turn five by the end of August must be registered in kindergartens.

The beginning of the new school year will be marked by pressure from the teachers’ unions who are seeking pay rise of 15 percent for educators and 10 percent for non-teaching staff.

The representatives of the unions said earlier they were ready to call a strike alert if the coalition government council didn’ t agree to meet their demands for higher pay on Monday.