5. EDUCATION

Education, language studies

School attendance is obligatory from the age of 6 till 15. Schools are mainly state school but there are also some private schools. Attendence at state schools is free of charge and school fees in private schools range from 5 000 to 12 000 crowns a year.

Pre-school education begins at the age of 6 months when children may attend creches until the age of three, but usually the mothers stay with them at home. From the age of 3 till the age of 6 children attend kindergartens. Still, it is most common for mothers to stay at home with them till children`s school age. Primary education starts at basic schools and lasts 8 years. Children have to study a lot of various subjects, for example math, Czech language and literature and one or two foreign languages and basic in physics, biology, civics, history etc. Secondary education lasts usually 4 years / from the age of 15 till the age of 18 or 19. Secondary education may be divided among

• secondary grammar school

• secondary special schools – schools of economics, technical schools….

• vocational schools

Third education starts at the age of 19 and lasts usuallly from 3 to 5 years. Studensts may attend various universities or colleges, for example School of Economic, College of Agriculture, Medical Faculty...

Students end their seconday education after passing their graduation exam. They have to pass an obligatory exam in Czech and one foreign language and must choose from two optional subjects studied during previous four years. Then they usually sit for an entry exam at some university or college. Subjects taught at special secondary schools are following – economics, accounting, typing and business correspondence.

Students are evaluated by marks from 1 to 5. 1 is the best and 5 is the worst. Each term the student gets his/her school report with marks from both obligatory and elective subjects.

The name of my school is Secondary medical agricultural/economic school and my major is economy of agriculturel and nutrition. My school is not very large but it has a high level of teaching quality, because teachers are very experienced. There is a basement at my school as well and there is a cloakroom for each student of my school. On the ground floor there is a student`s library in one classroom, some other classrooms, a computer lab, a chemistry lab and some teaching rooms. On the first floor we can find our director`s office, a school office, a deputies` office and many classrooms and teacher`s rooms. On the second floor there are mainly languages and business correspondence labs. It`s very good that almost one floor is just for languages, actually foreign languages. Foreign languages are very important for Czech people because Czech language is not very popular in the other countries. So when the world dosn`t want to study our language we must study world`s languages and the most popular language is English in the world. You have many ways how to study foreign language, for example school, privat teacher, evening classes or you can go abroad because living in foreign country is the best way how to learn languages.