Primary school directors struggling with problems as new school year begins

Another school year has begun and most primary schools say they are worse off than ever before. School directors have little money to pay their staff, aggressive school children are getting out of hand, and there is no room for efficiency as the large amount of obligatory paper work - brought on by the new schools' law - leaves little time for anything else.

"If the Czech Republic wants to be an equal partner of its fellow EU member states, it needs to take a radical step. The education system is old and rigid. It may have been effective thirty or fifty years ago but now it needs to be reformed. Globalisation forces us to teach the younger generation the new ways of learning, communicating, researching, problem solving and working in teams. Unfortunately, traditional Czech schools ignore this and focus entirely on 'encyclopaedia information'. Today's youth can find that sort of information on the internet within seconds. That's why we have to educate them in modern ways."

...says Karel Barta, the headmaster of a primary school in the north Bohemian town of Turnov and head of the Association of Primary School Directors in the country. In the Czech Republic, primary schools are financed by the state and the local authorities. The state provides teachers' salaries, their further education, and money for school materials and text books. The local authorities cover basic maintenance and running costs such as electricity, heating, and necessary rebuilding work. But according to Pavel Pacal, the headmaster of a primary school in the Moravian town of Trebic, insufficient funding forces most schools to take radical steps that harm the quality of the education they provide:

Mr Pacal was not the only school director to find that his budget was too small to cover all teachers' basic salaries and bonuses. The only solution - fire teachers and unite classes. But this has them was trapped in a vicious circle as Czech law requires that any staff member who has to be made redundant leaves with a severance pay; which most schools cannot afford. Stuck in deadlock, Mr Pacal had to ask the district authorities for financial support.

"I had to dismiss eleven staff members and I do not have any compensation money for them. It's a very difficult situation for me."

The head of the Association of Primary School Directors, Karel Barta, has been pointing out to politicians that the Czech Republic only spends some 4% of the GDP on education, while the worldwide average is 6% of the GDP. The government recently approved a proposal to increase the amount of money allocated to the education system but expects it to be long before it is pushed through parliament.

"School directors are unable to make long-term plans because they never know in advance how much money they can count on. The budget changes several times during the school year too. The last school year, for example, saw 13 changes. Another problem we are facing is the large amount of paper work that the new schools' law, which came into effect on January 1, requires and the at times contradictory requirements it states. Meanwhile we have no extra staff or money for all of this work. It's very time consuming."

The education ministry says with good planning, primary schools should be able to deal with their situation. It points out that there are 30% fewer students in Czech schools today than in 1989 while the number of teachers is about the same.

Experts say the ideal number of students in a class is between 17 and 25. In this school year, Mr Pacal's school had to merge some classes as a result of his forced dismissals of teachers. He fears the days in which his students were able to interact and get individual attention from their teachers are over:

"Less money means fewer teachers and more children in class rooms. In the last school year we had an average of 23 children. This year, there are between 28-30 children in one class. That's not good. It's very difficult to keep learning on a good level."

"My name is Lada Jirova and I started teaching a year ago."

Can one teach a class effectively when it has about thirty students?

"I don't think so. If it's a smaller class, it's easier to communicate and pupils can pay attention to every task. But when you have a lot of people, especially younger ones, it's difficult to keep them quiet and concentrating."

While directors like Mr Pacal are trying to hold onto their teachers, they are also busy clinging onto their students. The amount of money given to primary schools often depends on the number of students they have.

In order to save costs, some schools have reduced the number of voluntary subjects offered to students and, unable to pay teachers overtime, have discontinued after-school activities that were meant to keep kids busy.

"I was very surprised at how little children behave. It doesn't matter whether they are six or fifteen years. I would prefer to see love and rules in families to psychologists in schools later."

Headmaster Barta: "Our students have been getting more and more aggressive and teachers are very often afraid of them. Students must be learning this behaviour from all the TV programmes that they watch nowadays. A number of schools are currently testing a new teaching method to prevent this problem from worsening. This is the second year that our school has been involved in the project and it has been proven to be very successful. However, it requires more work than usual and the active involvement of both teachers and parents, who sometimes just aren't willing or able to co-operate."

Teachers get paid according to their experience, education, and age. School directors, especially those who have not been in their posts for long, tend to lay off the teachers with the longest experience, simply because they have higher salaries. Assistants, thanks to whom children with disabilities are able to go to normal schools and learn in regular classes, are also the first to be sacrificed. Headmaster Barta:

"If we want to integrate students with disabilities, we need assistants. For teachers to be more focused on their work, they need a helping hand. A doctor doesn't operate alone either. There should also be school psychologists, who attend to the personal problems of children. We are so busy that the children often have no one to talk to. That's why we tend to notice much too late if there is a problem with a student.

"After forty years of totalitarian rule, religion is hardly taught in schools. This is unfortunate because it helps to guide students. I don't want your listeners to think that the kids are shooting at each other in Czech schools but it must be said that we lack this ethical or moral leadership. Prevention is the best investment. Once something breaks down completely, it is only fixed with much difficulty."