Postponing starting school will probably be more difficult. The Czech Republic is too benevolent

“My son and I have been dealing with attention deficit disorder for a long time, so emotionally it was clear that he was not ready for school. The pediatrician proved us right and advised us to make an appointment with a pedagogical and psychological counseling center,” begins Tereza, the mother of a six-year-old preschooler.

“Meanwhile, in the kindergarten where my son goes, the teachers did readiness tests with the children. My son’s teacher also agreed with us and recommended a postponement,” she continues.

However, the reaction of the kindergarten director was not so friendly. “She actually told us directly that we are a small kindergarten in the village and that she needs a place for more children and these delays are terrible,” Tereza recounts.

However, the parents were not deterred by this and ordered their son to one of the pedagogical-psychological counseling centers.

“The lady who conducted the examination was very nice, first she chatted with me and my husband, and then my son was alone with her for about 40 minutes. She confirmed that there is really no readiness and recommended how to work with my son and what to improve,” Tereza concludes her experience by saying that next week during the registration day, she will go to the school to submit the documents needed for the postponement request.

Similar to previous years, this year too, delayed entry into first grade affects approximately a quarter of preschoolers. However, the Czech Republic stands out from the rest of Europe in this respect, and with some exaggeration it can be described as a “postponing superpower”.

The fact that in other European countries the number of deferrals varies in units of percentages, Seznam Zpravy has previously pointed out. In Belgium, less than one percent of preschoolers get a deferral, in Germany two percent, and France, for example, does not offer the option of deferrals at all.

Among Czech children, the most frequently cited reason for postponing schooling is their overall immaturity (37.2%), and for roughly a fifth of children, the main cause is logopedic defects and speech disorders (22.7%). This is shown by the data of the Czech School Inspection, which you can see in more detail in the graph below.

However, experts agree that the number of postponements is too high in the long term, which is why the Ministry of Education is now discussing ways to reduce their number.

Among the proposed ways is, for example, the transfer of authority and decision-making about postponement to schools or the granting of postponements only to children with serious health disadvantages or those who grew up in different cultural or living conditions.

However, there is also the possibility of allowing a postponement of the start of school only for children born after June 30 or May, or the complete abolition of the institution of deferrals.

Klára from Prague, who is a mother of two sons, would also be in favor of such a solution. The fact that the catchment school has not had enough capacity for a long time and will not have enough capacity in the future played a big role in deciding whether to postpone schooling for their children by a year.

“At the time, it looked like half of the dropout kids wouldn’t even make it and would have to commute much further. In the end, some spare spaces were found and they were converted into classrooms,” he begins his narration.

Her older son – born at the end of April – finally started school at the age of six and is currently in the second grade.

“At the time, the teacher told me in the kindergarten that the kindergarten had nothing more to offer him. Unfortunately, I only learned in retrospect that they did practically no pre-school preparation in this class, even though they pretended they did, and it was a huge shock in the 1st grade. He didn’t know ‘r’ and ‘ř’, but the speech therapist refused to give him a reprieve for this,” continues Klára.

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However, older children who had a deferral and also went through the preparatory class joined him in the first grade. And it soon became apparent that they had a slightly shifted starting line compared to others.

“My son has classmates up to two years older in his class and it’s terrible. They are stronger, bigger, more mature, more skilled and learned to read, write and count in the preparatory class. “Unfortunately, the class teacher adjusted the pace to the best and at the end of September she wanted to send my son, who started properly, but could not read or write, back to kindergarten saying that he was not keeping up,” says Klára.

She subsequently heard from the class teacher that boys born between March and August are in the zone of deferred children, and therefore her son was not even supposed to start school.

Even after a year and a half, the situation has not improved. “Even in the second grade, according to the teacher, the son is the smallest, the slowest and the worst. So I would ban postponements. Combined with an unreasonable teacher, it’s hell for both parents and children. If there were no unnecessary delays, the children would be about a year apart and somehow compared. Not like this, the younger ones don’t have a chance and it’s terrible,” explains Klára, in which she feels the negative impact of the postponements.

Having learned from previous experience, this year with her second son, who will celebrate his sixth birthday only in August, she preferred to go to a pedagogical-psychological counseling center before enrolling.

“When I mentioned that he can’t read, write and count and will be the youngest in the whole year, that I don’t want to send him, the psychologist was very surprised. She had the feeling that I was crazy, that this is not how it should look when starting. Knowing that he will again have classmates who are two years older, I am very nervous about it,” he shares his concerns.

The proportion of children who start school later varies significantly across individual districts. The PAQ Research map shows that in some parts of the country the percentage of postponements climbs to 40 percent. In neighboring districts, however, it is often half as much.

“At the moment, our system is very fragmented, very decentralized, and if you look at the map of delays, you will find that there are huge differences between individual parts of the Czech Republic,” points out Karel Gargulák, PAQ Research’s analyst for the field of education and expert advisor to the Minister of Education.

“How is that possible, you ask? Are there so many different children? No. It just happened in a certain way, while no one centrally controlled it,” says Gargulák, adding that the dynamics of relationships between schools, kindergartens, parents and counseling centers also play a role.

The Ministry of Education should deal with the issue in the coming weeks. “After that, they will proceed with the preparation of legislative changes and the creation of a plan of systemic measures with a gradual onset and with regard to demographic development so that the capacities of primary schools are available at the same time,” said Tereza Fojtová, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Education.

The result should be a financial saving of around nine billion crowns as well as more places in kindergartens, which in many regions have to refuse children due to limited capacities. According to the ministry’s estimates, the reduction of postponements could free up to 10,000 jobs.

Nevertheless, Gargulák points out that it will be quite difficult to plan the changes in such a way that the problem of insufficient capacity is not simply transferred from kindergartens to primary schools.

“It is a question of how individual territories will deal with it. Specifically, those where there are long-term large demographic overhangs, such as the Central Bohemian Region or Prague,” fears the expert.