Czech Republic's second-largest city awarded funds to keep students from failing school

The City of Brno has published on its website that the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport has recommended it receive funding for a project called “Preventing failure at primary schools in the City of Brno”. The city’s request for funding has now been fully approved.

First Vice-Mayor Petr Hladík issued a statement about the project. “The aim of the project is to support primary education across the board in the city of Brno. One compnent of the project activities is support for tutoring at primary schools during the project implementation, which will take place at partner organizations and with the schools involved. Another activity is support for career advising with the aim of aiding youth in making a meaningful choice of profession with the assistance of the school counseling center, or support for working with parents at schools with high numbers of disadvantaged pupils,” the city’s website quotes him as saying.

All primary schools established by the city, two partner schools established by other entities, and seven organizations providing informal education in Brno by tutoring disadvantaged primary school pupils are to be involved in the project, including the Diocese’s Caritas organization, DROM, the Museum of Romani Culture, Petrov Cathedral and Teen Challenge International. An important component of the project will also be methodological support for involving schools, through the Department of Education, Youth and Sport at Brno City Hall, in implementing the education of all children together by providing inclusion coordinators to work in the schools.

Both the partner organizations involved and the schools will receive funding for equipment for the work in classrooms. Implementation of the project is planned for the period from 1 August 2017 until the end of 2020.