CzechRep not to scrap remedial schools but change criteria

Prague, March 21 (CTK) - The Czech state will not abolish "practical" schools for pupils with light mental disorders but it must prevent, in view of a Strasbourg court verdict, kids from being sent there only due to coming from socially weak families or to their ethnic origin, Petr Fiala said Thursday.

Speaking in the Senate, the upper house of parliament, Education Minister Fiala (unaffiliated) reacted to a petition demanding the preservation of the practical (formerly known as special) schools.

"By no means do we intend to swing from one extreme to the other, to completely throw away the Czech school system's hitherto practice that has proved itself and start scrapping something that has been functioning for a long time and is well-founded, i.e. the elementary practical schools," Fiala said.

The petition signed by 76,300 people protests against the government's strategy of fighting social exclusion.

The government's strategy planned the abolition of practical schools by 2015. The government approved it at variance with pupils' educational needs, the critics say.

The Senate supported the petition after a three-hour debate Thursday.

It said the government did not sufficiently discuss its strategy with experts and it should rework the document based on a new public debate. The strategy's implementation should be secured in material and financial terms.

"The government must provide money and staff for this purpose, instead of transferring [the task's implementation] to regions and towns," said Zdenek Skromach, deputy chairman of the Senate and the senior opposition Social Democrats (CSSD) who dominate the upper house.

Government Human Rights Commissioner Monika Simunkova said the strategy from late 2011 reckoned with a gradual transformation of a number of practical schools to standard ones.

The strategy is yet to be reworked also to secure just financial conditions for schools and give a preference to individual rather than collective integration of [handicapped but not mentally disabled] kids in standard school classes.

More than one-third of Czech Romany children are placed in practical schools. Such children must not be denied the right to standard education only due to the unfavourable social environment they live in, Simunkova said.

This is also the aim of the Czech government's action plan of implementing the verdict the European Court of Human Rights from 2007, which is to eliminate the placing of socially handicapped kids in practical schools.

In November 2007, the Czech state lost a Strasbourg court dispute with 18 young Czech Romanies. The court decided that by placing the then kids, all from the Ostrava region, north Moravia, in practical schools, the state violated their right to education and discriminated against them.

The government strategy's critics insist that Romany children do not end up in practical schools due to their ethnic origin but due to their incapability of coping with standard lessons. The critics reject as demagogic the opinion that practical school leavers cannot find a job. Some of them not even try to do so, the critics say.

The selection of pupils to be sent to practical schools has been repeatedly criticised as discriminatory by the Council of Europe and most recently also by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) in its fresh report Thursday.

The European Court of Human Rights, too, has criticised the situation and exerted pressure on Prague to change the system of children's admission to elementary schools.

Earlier this week, a group of Czech Romany students and young intellectuals asked the state in an open letter to change its approach to Romany children, whose massive placing in practical schools lowers their chance of acquiring higher education and a better job.

"Five years have elapsed since the [Strasbourg] verdict and the Czech legislation still inappropriately divides pupils into several categories," the young Romanies wrote to Fiala and to PM Petr Necas (Civic Democrats, ODS).