Postponement of school attendance as a specific of education in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Compulsory school attendance is set at nine years in the Czech Republic. It usually starts at the age of 6 years and it is met by successful completing of primary and lower secondary education (ISCED 1 and 2). Czech Republic is among the countries in which the first-graders must have a certain level of school readiness resulting from their physical, mental and social development. School readiness is diagnosed by a psychologist, paediatrician and pedagogue. The conclusion of this diagnostics becomes the basis for parents who can ask the director of primary school for postponement of compulsory school attendance. Frequent postponements of schooling are the specific of the Czech educational environment because they relate to almost one fifth of the population of children. For example, these results raise many questions in comparison with neighbouring Slovakia, which has very similar socio-economic and cultural conditions, and where postponements of school attendance concern about tenth of children. The study aims to reflect the situation in the Czech Republic through an analysis of data collected by the Ministry of Education. Data refer to the nationwide records of pupils in the first year of compulsory schooling. The outputs of other equally focused researches are also included in the analysis. It turns out, that not only relevant reasons are important in this situation, but also subjective motives of parents play role. This indicates a need for more effective cooperation of all interested parties, but especially schools and parents.