Czech police school to open programme for minorities

The Czech Interior Ministry’s high police school in Holesov today presented a new educational programme for ethnic minorities, Interior Minister Ivan Langer told journalists.

The first 20 students from minority communities will start studying as of next September. The launching of the project is also a reaction to an expected influx of foreigners to the Czech Republic after the country joins the Schengen areas at the end of this year, Langer said.

The Holesov police school started considering the new programme in June when it found new free capacities on the basis of an analysis.

The four-year studies of the Security of Legal Activities programme be will be completed with school-leaving exams and is designed for ninth grade leavers.

The school believes that it would not be easy to find future students.

"We have found out that only 12 out of the 160 members of ethnic minorities in the Zlin area advanced to the ninth grade this year," school headmaster Jiri Vesely said.

The school will therefore recruit students also in other regions, he said.

Langer pointed to the necessity of the opening of the Czech police to minority members.

"It is a very courageous and urgently needed project because the Czech Republic is opening to the entire Europe. The number of foreigners who settled in the country is growing. Only for the first ten months of this year, 50,000 foreigners have received either long-term or permanent residence permits in the Czech Republic," Langer said.

He said that apart from the state budget, the project would also be financed from the European Union funds.