Czech education last year faced an unprecedented challenge. After the outbreak of war, tens of thousands of Ukrainian children came to the Czech Republic, who needed to be integrated into schools. On Wednesday evening, the Česká spořitelna Foundation honored several personalities and projects that helped Ukrainian pupils with integration. The Foundation awards prizes annually for contributions in the field of education.
A year ago, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian women and children arrived in the Czech Republic. Among them were more than ten thousand female teachers. Thanks to the Start to learn project, they were able to better find employment in the Czech Republic. The people behind the initiative helped them with the recognition of pedagogical education from Ukraine, with obtaining a qualification for teaching in the Czech Republic and with improving the Czech language. The project has now been awarded by the Česká spořitelna Foundation for how it was able to respond flexibly and innovatively to the situation in Czech education in 2022.
“Over 1,200 female teachers have participated so far. Some of them already work in schools, some are in the process of integration. The biggest complication for them is the language barrier and the overall different education system. The Czech one works differently with error rates or with pupils who require an individual approach, ” explained Markéta Sochovská from Start teaching.
The Česká spořitelna Foundation awarded a total of four prizes on Wednesday evening. Of these, three focused on the integration of Ukrainian refugees. In addition to the Start Teaching project, the Foundation awarded the non-profit organization Eduzměna for coordinating donors who wanted to financially support the education of Ukrainian children. Eduzměna participates, for example, in the project We give rings to children, which provides money to parents who cannot afford to pay for extracurricular activities for their children.
“The key to the successful integration of Ukrainian refugees is above all language support, but it is also important to support leisure activities that help both with integration, but also with improving language skills,” described Ivana Šenitková from the Eduzměna foundation fund.
The Česká spořitelna Foundation further awarded the Meta organization’s program director Kristýna Titěrová for her professional and personal involvement in the integration of pupils from Ukraine into Czech schools. For a long time, he has been dedicated to supporting children of foreigners who are just learning Czech. She is the author of several professional publications and the editor of the first volume of the Czech as a second language textbook Leva zadní. “On a nationwide scale, she has fundamentally contributed to the inclusion of Ukrainian pupils in Czech schools,” the České spořitelny Foundation justified its award.
“Normally, roughly two thousand children come to schools, while now there were tens of thousands,” Titěrová looked back on the past year. “The Ministry of Education reacted, changed the system of entrance exams and even introduced language training in schools, which we have been advocating for a long time to happen,” she added. According to her, one of the biggest challenges was and still is how to get Ukrainian pupils who believe in returning home to study in Czech classrooms.
In addition to the topic of integration of Ukrainians, the School Leader project for beginning principals also received an award. It is a joint project of the Ministry of Education, the National Pedagogical Institute and the non-profit organization Teacher Live. The aim is to provide systematic support to beginning directors. Heads of schools involved in this program boast that thanks to it they learn how to lead people, how to move the school forward and meet similarly motivated colleagues from other schools.
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