Speech of the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Mirek Topolánek at the Occasion of the Beginning of the Academic Year at Bethlehem Chapel
Dear ladies and gentlemen, chancellors, dear guests,
Do not expect me to praise the governmental education policy, or generally, the state of Czech universities. It will not take me more than ten minutes. It will not be a eulogy but rather specification of problems.
I will be able to cope with specification of positive matters very quickly. Czech universities provide reasonable level of knowledge for increasing number of students. And the government has found money for funding of schools and for increasing volume of means for research and development even in stringent budget.
What are the deficits of Czech universities? The main two of them we know well: low number of students and top-class research establishments. Education in the Czech Republic is still rather exclusive matter. However results are not very exclusive.
I suppose it is clear what we need: to open closed educational system in both directions. In the direction downwards to enhance number of bachelor programmes and to enable to gain university degree to everyone who is talented.
In the direction upwards we must set such motivating mechanisms, so that subsidies, money, and resources would be directed preferentially to top-class universities, to centres of excellence.
You may perhaps interpose that there is still the third problem, I mean lack of money. I intentionally mention it as the last one. On the contrary, I am convinced that it is not a cause of problems, but it is a consequence of wrongly operating system.
Why anybody who wants to study cannot study in our country? Why do we have few world-class research establishments? The reason is clear. Even in the sphere of education there is a market. We are lacking in linkage of theory and practice. And that is why funds lack here, too.
Funds from the state budget will always be insufficient, in common with Great Britain, Sweden, or the Netherlands. Therefore we need more private resources.
First of all we need tuition fees. Part of the Programme Declaration of the Government is a proposition that assign us to start broad discussion on payments. We must hold it with all of you. It should result in money influx, in higher quality of education, and in easier accession of education to unprivileged children; to whom who cannot afford so called free-of-charge education.
Secondly, we need to motivate firms to invest more in education and science; both in terms of taxation, offer of technological centres, in which universities, research institutes and private firms would be involved.
The government, unlike its predecessors, does not economize on education; nevertheless it has limited budget and limited resources. We pushed through three operation programmes in the European Commission: Human Resources and Employment, Education for Competitiveness and Prague and Adaptability.
But this is just the passive part of the solution. The active solution consists in the system change, in creation of conditions for market evaluation of education and private resources influx, in setting up hard criteria of successfulness, like number of citations, number of patents and new technologies introduced in the practice.
And I would conclude my speech with the word "practice". Only practice is a criterion of success. The philosopher Seneca said: "We do not learn for school, but for life". Therefore, let us learn attentively and diligently.