Czech Education Minister wants to give schools money to visit historical sites

Czech Education Minister Kateřina Valachová (Czech Social Democratic Party - ČSSD) wants to make it possible for schools to visit certain locations connected with Czech history free of charge. In May the ministry will make public a pilot program through which schools will be able to seek money for such field trips.

CZK 30 million will be made available for such trips this year. "We want to test how schools will respond to this," the minister said on 1 February during a visit to a college pedagogy department in Brno.

If there will be interest in the opportunity, education in the field will be expanded even further in the future. The aim is to bolster awareness of both the celebrated and the tragic moments in Czech history.

In the beginning, four locations are being considered as destinations. The minister specifically mentioned the Terezín Memorial, the J. A. Comenius National Pedagogical Museum and Library, and the memorial at Hodonín u Kunštátu (in the Blansko district).

That memorial is located on the site of what was once a concentration camp during the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia through which hundreds of Romani people passed on their way to their deaths at Auschwitz, and it was also used as a camp after the Second World War. Schools will get the chance to apply for funding not just for the costs of traveling to such destinations, but also to pay for educational programs about them so the visits to specific locations will be appropriately combined with instruction in civics or history.