Education in Czechoslovakia - System

System

In the 1980s, the Czechoslovak education system had four basic levels:

• nursery and kindergarten;
• 8-year primary schools; (until 1978: 9 years)
• various kinds of secondary schools; and
• a variety of institutions of higher education.

Education was compulsory between the ages of six and sixteen from 1984 (i.e. 10 years, 1922-1948: 8 years, 1948-1984: 9 years). In 1974-75 planners began an education reform, shortening the primary cycle from nine to eight years and standardizing curricula within the secondary- school system. The state financed education, and all textbooks and instructional material below the university level were free (returned at the end of the semester).

Secondary schools included gymnasiums (stressing general education and preparation for higher education) and vocational schools (which emphasized technical training); both were four-year programs. A highly developed apprenticeship program and a system of secondary vocational/professional programs were attached to specific industries or industrial plants.

In both secondary and higher education, provision was made for workers to attend evening study in combination with work-release time.

In 1985 there were 36 universities or university-level institutions of higher education, comprising 110 faculties; 23 were located in the Czech Socialist Republic, and 13 were located in the Slovak Socialist Republic. The mid-1970s reform shortened the course of study in most fields from five to four years. A 1980 law on higher education increased the control of the Czech and Slovak ministries of education over universities and technical colleges. Postgraduate study involved three to six years of study. Faculties could exist within a university system or as independent entities (as in the case of the six theological faculties under the direction of both republics' ministries of culture, or educational faculties sometimes administered directly by the republics' ministries of education).

The regime made intensive efforts to improve the educational status of women in the 1970s. The number of women who completed a course of higher education jumped by 93 percent between 1970 and 1980 (for men the increase was 48 percent). Although women continued to cluster in such traditionally female areas of employment as health care and teaching, their enrollment in many secondary schools outstripped that of men. Women have accounted for 40 percent of university enrollment since the mid-1960s. In the 1985-86 school year, this figure was 43 percent.