Které problémy diskutované v českém školství jsou pro české učitele nejpalčivější? Na prvním místě je to administrativní zátěž, která na učitele dopadá, dále pak současná podoba inkluze a psychické zdraví žáků. Vyplynulo to z průzkumu, který mezi učiteli základních a středních škol uskutečnil vydavatel učitelských průkazů ITIC, společnost GTS Alive. Obdobný průzkum proběhl paralelně i na Slovensku. Tam je pořadí problémů jiné: na prvním místě figurují nedostatečné platy a nízká prestiž učitelského povolání.
“The survey showed that for most Czech teachers, administrative work takes up to 60 minutes a day, for some even more. Over 80 percent of teachers see this as a problem. It involves paperwork related to class supervision and other activities. In fact, excessive bureaucracy was also identified as the biggest issue by school principals, in a survey we conducted a year and a half ago,” said Radek Schich, director of GTS Alive.
More than 80 percent of teachers also see the current form of inclusion as a problem. Many of them would like to abolish or adjust it. As one of the surveyed teachers stated: “We should attend to children appropriately to their abilities and, above all, professionally—not by waving a magic wand to turn a teacher into a special education expert and trying to make so-called engineers out of students with challenges.”
Another teacher added: “Inclusion lowers the level of education. The idea that I can give individual attention to everyone when 6 out of 18 students have specific learning disorders is an illusion.” On the other hand, most teachers appreciate the current role of teaching assistants, with 57 percent of elementary school teachers rating them positively.
Eight out of ten teachers also see the much-discussed mental health of students as a problem. A similar number are displeased with what they perceive as the low social prestige of the teaching profession and view the family background of students and its impact on academic performance or behavior at school with skepticism.
Although dissatisfaction with salaries is not at the very top of the list for Czech teachers, it still reaches 78 percent. But that’s nothing compared to Slovakia, where a full 96 percent of teachers are dissatisfied with their salaries.
Slovak teachers generally take a more skeptical view of most of the surveyed issues compared to their Czech colleagues. This includes the mentioned prestige of the teaching profession, student discipline, parental attitudes, and the impact of the current economic situation on parents’ ability to finance their children’s participation in school activities.
On the other hand, both Czech and Slovak teachers rate bullying at their specific schools as a relatively minor issue. In the case of Czech teachers, school facilities are also viewed relatively positively, with more than two-thirds finding them satisfactory.
The survey was conducted in November and December 2024 among 2,393 elementary and secondary school teachers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the Czech Republic, the survey was carried out by GTS Alive, the issuer of ISIC and ITIC student and teacher cards. In Slovakia, it was conducted by CKM SYTS, also an issuer of ISIC and ITIC cards.
Appendix 1: Czech teachers – which topics do they perceive as the biggest problem?
| Do you perceive the following topic as a problem? | Yes | No | Don't know |
| Administrative burden on teachers | 81 % | 16 % | 3 % |
| The current form of inclusion | 81 % | 14 % | 5 % |
| Students' mental health | 80 % | 16 % | 4 % |
| How society recognizes the teaching profession | 79 % | 15 % | 6 % |
| Students’ family background and its impact on their performance or behavior at school | 78 % | 17 % | 5 % |
| The current level of teachers’ salaries | 78 % | 16 % | 6 % |
| Students’ approach to learning | 76 % | 23 % | 1 % |
| Student discipline | 60 % | 39 % | 2 % |
| Parents’ approach to school | 59 % | 34 % | 8 % |
| Number of students in classes | 51 % | 48 % | 2 % |
| Communication with parents | 48 % | 46 % | 5 % |
| The impact of the current economic situation on parents’ ability to finance student participation in school events, pay for lunches, purchase supplies, etc. | 44 % | 45 % | 11 % |
| Approach of the school inspection | 40 % | 35 % | 25 % |
| Funding for supplies for your subject | 31 % | 65 % | 4 % |
| Basing educational goals on key competencies | 30 % | 49 % | 20 % |
| Use of artificial intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT) by students for homework, presentations, etc. | 30 % | 56 % | 14 % |
| The existence and current form of eight-year grammar schools | 29 % | 49 % | 22 % |
| Overall equipment of your school | 28 % | 69 % | 3 % |
| Bullying at your school | 15 % | 76 % | 9 % |
Appendix 2: Slovak teachers – which topics do they perceive as the biggest problem?
| Do you perceive the following topic as a problem? | Yes | No | Don't know |
| The current level of teachers’ salaries | 96 % | 2 % | 2 % |
| How society recognizes the teaching profession | 92 % | 4 % | 4 % |
| Administrative burden on teachers | 86 % | 11 % | 3 % |
| Students’ family background and its impact on their performance or behavior at school | 86 % | 9 % | 5 % |
| Students’ approach to learning | 77 % | 19 % | 4 % |
| Students' mental health | 77 % | 14 % | 9 % |
| Student discipline | 76 % | 22 % | 2 % |
| Parents’ approach to school | 68 % | 23 % | 9 % |
| The impact of the current economic situation on parents’ ability to finance student participation in school events, pay for lunches, purchase supplies, etc. | 62 % | 29 % | 9 % |
| Number of students in classes | 60 % | 35 % | 6 % |
| Communication with parents | 59 % | 34 % | 7 % |
| Funding for supplies for your subject | 51 % | 43 % | 7 % |
| Overall equipment of your school | 44 % | 49 % | 7 % |
| Use of artificial intelligence (e.g., ChatGPT) by students for homework, presentations, etc. | 43 % | 38 % | 19 % |
| Bullying at your school | 23 % | 62 % | 15 % |
Appendix 3: Selection of typical responses from Czech teachers to the open-ended question: “If you could choose one specific improvement that would help you in your work, what would it be?”
- Less administration
- Smaller number of students per class
- Abolish inclusion
- Increase parental interest in their children’s education
- Increase my motivation to keep working, including salary
- Abolish the Framework Educational Programme and return to curricula, and abolish inclusion
- Abolish inclusion and lay off 30,000 assistants
- Change the School Educational Programme
- Improve cooperation between teachers and parents, less administrative work
- Better support for active teachers. Unfortunately, the ones getting the most money now are burned-out teachers who’ve been there the longest
- Lock up students' mobile phones during lessons
- Higher financial compensation (the money isn’t enough, I’m considering leaving the profession). Improve teachers' status, aggression from parents is increasing
- More digitalization of the entire education process
- Adjust the time allocation for subjects. Sorry, but 1 hour per week for IT in the digital age is pathetic. For example, with robot programming, by the time students figure things out or fix errors, the bell rings. And they still need time to take things apart
- Reduce administration
- Printer and copier in the staffroom
- Consensus on student expectations – I think it’s confusing when someone gives A’s for free and another demands high-quality work and preparation, even if it’s not the students' graduation subject
- Renovation and soundproofing of the office where I prepare for several hours in the afternoon. The furniture is about 50 years old, there’s a hole in the linoleum in the middle. The wall next to the after-school room is partly drywall, so I hear everything from next door
- Reform inclusion – fewer children with disabilities in a class. Or reduce the number of “normal” students in such a class. You can’t have both. Let the officials try teaching in such a class themselves!
- Eliminate excessive administration, more time for preparing project-based teaching...
- Don’t admit students with D grades from primary school to grammar schools. We’re a peripheral gymnasium that takes anyone
- Fewer lesson preparations. I teach 22 hours a week, and have 20 preparations. If I had the same lesson in more classes, I could reuse much of the preparation...
- Fewer teaching hours so there’s time for quality prep. Fewer students per class. Better knowledge level from students coming from primary schools. I teach at a secondary school, and the first year is basically catching up on what they didn’t learn before. The level is very uneven. Curricula were better than the current situation with various SEP versions. And the constant changes create more chaos
- I’m satisfied with my work. The students are active, participate, publish the school newspaper. I only notice a certain scattered focus – influenced by media and the internet, which we of course use in teaching – but they can't concentrate, don’t see what’s written on the board, and three of them ask about a word that’s right there. They don’t really take notes, but the ability to make excerpts and know what key words are is important for studying
- Financial motivation. In the current situation, I’m losing the will to spend personal time working beyond my hours, and that’s common in education. We take our work home regardless of the 8-hour day
- Salary increases should ALWAYS go into the base pay. Otherwise we don’t get the money. The principal’s favorites get it as bonuses
- There should be a teaching assistant in every elementary school class
Appendix 4: Selection of typical responses from Slovak teachers to the open-ended question: “If you could choose one specific improvement that would help you in your work, what would it be?”
- Higher salary
- Fewer students in the classroom
- Less bureaucracy
- More teaching aids
- A 35-hour workload as a vocational training instructor is way too much. Adjust the national education program and reduce the time allocation for practical training
- Reintroduce doctor's notes for absences. Our biggest problem is attendance, and then the teacher can try as hard as they want. Explaining the material to five or six students and then doing the same next week for others is demotivating
- Reduce the number of students in classrooms and thereby eliminate the need for classroom assistants
- Reduce bureaucracy... more training and qualified teachers, personal assistants in classrooms... there are many children with ADHD and uncontrollable behavior. One teacher can’t provide individual attention to everyone… education is declining
- More funding for education (and I don’t just mean salaries). I wish children had toilet paper in the bathrooms, that I didn’t have to pay for training from my own money, and that we had nice, renovated spaces at our school.
- Of course, higher financial compensation, because we also work for people missing in our field. Improve the attractiveness of education and give teachers more authority or at least more respect
- The number of students per class must clearly be reduced. 28 first-graders nowadays, when in a typical class in a large city housing estate you get 6 children with special educational needs, half of them don’t speak clearly, can’t be understood, 4 families are going through divorce… in the first cycle, the maximum should be 15 children
- Relieve us from unnecessary paperwork, so that this time can be used for quality lesson preparation
- A proper traditional janitor who does their job properly. And if the government approved the position of a digital janitor, it would be amazing and would greatly simplify teachers' work
- More emphasis should be placed on manners and discipline. Motivation is important, but without discipline it’s not enough. Why aren’t central teaching tools, materials, quality videos created? Why must every teacher figure it out on their own? It’s inefficient, and we can’t be expected to master all the necessary tech and knowledge. I have lots of ideas, but I don’t know how to create video content—that’s what programmers or IT people do, but they won’t work in schools. Textbooks? There are many, but they're useless. What for?!
- Material improvements for the school, e.g. replacing century-old desks and furniture
- Student numbers must be reduced in classrooms, teachers should be given work phones, salaries raised, new modern reading books (not textbooks) should be added to schools, teachers should be equipped so they don’t have to bring their own supplies to work + 50% of the paperwork should be eliminated!
Notes for editors:
GTS Alive s.r.o. in the Czech Republic issues and manages ISIC student cards and ISIC Scholar pupil cards, ITIC teacher cards, and, to a lesser extent, other cards. The company was founded in August 2000. Its predecessor in the Czech Republic was GTS International. GTS Alive s.r.o. is part of the international GTS Alive Group, headquartered in Prague, with branches in seventeen countries on four continents.
GTS Alive organizes a major professional conference for school principals, the Alive Forum, once a year.
GTS Alive, through the ISIC PORT chip identification system, also provides many elementary and secondary schools with secure access to their buildings and an electronic attendance system. The company also facilitates travel or accident insurance for students.
For more information, contact:
Jan Šimral, media representative of GTS Alive
Tel.: +420 737 944 370
E-mail: info@jansimral.com
