Pavel in favour of lowering voting age and raising academic salaries

President Petr Pavel said that he would probably be in favour of lowering the voting age from 18 to 16, as he believes that young people have sufficient knowledge about current affairs in the country and their involvement in deciding elections would not be a security risk. The statement came on Tuesday as the president was in a school in Frýdek-Místek as part of his two-day visit to the Moravian-Silesian Region.

Czechia’s newly incumbent head of state also expressed support for an increase in salaries for academics teaching at philosophical faculties, on the backdrop of Tuesday’s protests by many university teachers on the occasion of Teachers’ Day.

He said that the main issue that the Moravian-Silesian Region is facing is an exodus of young people, which, he believes, does not correspond to the many opportunities and rising quality of life in the north-east of Czechia.