The Czech Republic - Questions and answers

What will the role of the final examination in admission to university be?
Do you expect the universities to put more value on the final exam in the future?
Can you specify the issue of the university autonomy more thoroughly?

The introduction of the new higher secondary education leaving (final) examination in the Czech Republic has a number of reasons. Presently, most of the decision-making competencies are passed onto individual schools, the final exam thus being only internal. It is the head of the school who collaborates with the subject teachers on the content of the final examinations. The school examination committee comprises of internal teachers (only the chairman of the committee is an external teacher from another school), the assessment and the evaluation is also done internally and is fully in the competence of the school.

The final exam reform is supposed to bring comparability of the achievements between students and different types of higher secondary schools to the educational system. By introducing external examinations into the system, the state will be able to guarantee the content of the final examinations and the educational level obtained by secondary education.

One of the main aims of the proposed reform is defining the requirements for every each compulsory final exam subject. It must be clear to all students - candidates, what will the level of knowledge and skills required for the final examination be. For this purpose, National subject committees will be established. These will elaborate the so called " Subject Catalogues" (Předmětový katalog). The National subject committees will comprise prominent subject experts, members of the National subject associations, university experts and each type of higher secondary school will be represented by at least one experienced secondary school teacher.

The role of the university experts as members of the National Subject Committees is seen mainly in the preparation of the Subject Catalogues and the external tests. Universities will therefore be able to affect the content of the final exam, particularly the external exam, thus affecting the process of the final exam content convergence with the university admission criteria. The requirements and needs of the universities should be evident particularly in the advanced level examination - the A level.

Czech universities are very autonomous. Each university has its own criteria for the admission examinations and organises its own admission examinations as well. We expect the new reformed higher secondary school final exam to bring comparability of the students´educational results and the information value of the final exam to be higher.

The reform counts with radical changes and so it is necessary for the new model to be positively accepted by the wide public. We hope, that by the come in of universities into the process of realisation (Subject Catalogues, members of the National Subject committees, opponents and advisors) the new reformed secondary school final exam will retrospectively gain for the universities the necessary prestige and value. Nevertheless, it is the autonomy of the universities which will cause the process to be rather long-term.