The Czech Education Ministry is planning adjustments to the foreign language curriculum for Czech schools, reducing the options for a second foreign language to just three languages, and bringing forward the compulsory grade to start learning languages. According to Education Minister Mikulas Bek (STAN), speaking on TV Nova yesterday, the changes are necessary to maintain continuity in secondary schools.
According to the new framework curriculum (RVP), which the Ministry of Education introduced in January, pupils will only have a choice of German, French and Spanish for their second language. Russian, Italian, and other languages will disappear from the offer.
At the same time, all children will start learning English from the first grade of primary school, whereas now they must do so by third grade at the latest. The second foreign language will be compulsory from the seventh grade at the latest, brought forward from the eighth grade at the latest.
According to Bek, the current system is not effective. He also said that other languages will not disappear from schools entirely; schools will still be able to offer them as facultative.
According to the new RVP, the language level that pupils should reach in English by the end of the ninth grade will increase from A2 to B1. “I think this is necessary,” said Bek. “It is absolutely unacceptable that we should say in the future that Czech children will have a competitive disadvantage against their peers from the Baltics and Germany.”
According to a survey commissioned by the Education Ministry, English language learning in the Czech Republic is at a lower level than is usual across northern Europe, Germany and France, Bek noted.
The new curriculum will be compulsory in the first and sixth grades of primary schools in the Czech Republic from September 2027, and in all grades from September 2031.
Changes in the second foreign language curriculum will take effect later, with the ministry approving a delay of their implementation. Schools will have to offer the second foreign language on a compulsory basis from at least the seventh grade by September 2034.
