In order to further strengthen ties with the Czech Republic, the German land of Bavaria is planning to build six German-Czech bilingual schools in the border areas, the Bavarian Ministry of Education reported to the Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) website today.
The schools are expected to operate a German-Czech programme from the next school year.
“The six ‘continuation schools’ in Lower Bavaria, Upper Franconia and Upper Palatinate will become centres of Bavarian-Czech friendship,” the ministry said in a statement.
A continuation school in the Bavarian school system is a school that pupils enter after completing their first four years of school attendance. In the Czech context, these schools would correspond roughly to the second stage of primary school (fifth to ninth grades) or the first years of an eight-year grammar school.
The three Bavarian districts in question border on the Karlovy Vary, Plzen and South Bohemia regions.
According to the Bavarian Education Ministry, the task of the schools will be to support Czech language teaching and regular meetings of Czech and Bavarian pupils at various cultural and sports events.
Most of the bilingual schools will be in the Upper Palatinate, specifically in Vohenestrauss, Waldsassen, Oberviechtach and Cham. In Lower Bavaria, pupils will learn Czech in Hauzenberg and in Upper Franconia, in Wunsiedel.
“Languages build bridges to other countries and cultures and to people’s hearts. It is precisely in the border region that people from Bavaria and the Czech Republic feel a deep sense of unity,” said Bavarian Education Minister Anna Stolz.
Bavarian Minister-President Markus Soder announced the establishment of three German-Czech bilingual schools in the border regions during a meeting with Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala in Cham in July.
Czech is currently offered as a second optional foreign language in upper grades of a number of Bavarian schools.
According to the Bavarian government statistics from the end of 2022, in the 2021/2022 school year, Czech was offered as a foreign language in 17 technical secondary schools (realschule) in the border region. In 2023, a final exam in Czech as a foreign language was held at a grammar school in Munich, for the first time in the history of Bavaria.
