Introduction
 
The Czech Republic signed the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages in 2000, but has not yet ratified or implemented the document. This also means that no monitoring takes place within the framework of the Charter on, for example, minority languages in education in the Czech Republic .
 
The Czech Republic did, however, sign the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in 1995 and ratified it in 1997. The first cycle report on the implementation of the Framework Convention on the Protection of National Minorities was submitted by the Czech Republic in 1999. The second report was submitted in 2004, inaccordance with the Framework Convention.
 
Since 1991, the rights of national minorities in the Czech Republic have been officially established in laws. However, a striking lack of education in minority languages still exists. The Czech government admits this in the above-mentioned Second Framework Convention Report:[1]
 
“Despite the Education Ministry’s policy concepts with elements of national minority cultures, history and languages, there are still gaps by means of multicultural education.”
 
Officially, there are three ways to receive education in one’s mother tongue: there are schools where subjects are taught in the language of a national minority; there are schools where Czech is the dominant instructive language, but where the language of a national minority is taught as an optional subject; and finally there are dislocated classes where subjects are taught in the language of a national minority.[2]
 
The following minority languages are spoken in the Czech Republic : German (60,248 speakers), Polish (59,000), Romany (33,000), Slovakian (240,000), Croatian (850), Serbian (1,810), Hungarian (19,900), Ukrainian (8,200, Ruthenian 1,900), Russian (5,000), Bulgarian (3,400), Greek (3,231) and Albanian (692). There are 10.3 million people living in the Republic: 95 % of the inhabitants speak Czech as their mother tongue.
 
 
German in education in the Czech Republic
 
For the German language community in the Czech Republic, there is only little opportunity to receive education in the mother tongue. It is no longer the case that Germans live in this country in any significant numbers: indeed, most of them - the so-called “Sudetengermans” - were chased away after World War II. Before the war, nearly 3.5 million Germans lived in  Czechoslovakia; most of them were deported or expelled after 1945.[3]  In the days of  communist Czechoslovakia , it was forbidden to speak German at all. However, things changed after the fall of communism.
 
Since 1995, Praguehas boasted a bilingual, Czech-German grammar school: the Thomas Mann Gymnasium (První gymnasium Thomase Manna), founded by the Union of Germans in the Prague and Central Bohemia Region. German language, history and literature is taught at this school, and what is more, the language partly functions as an instructive language. The school also prepares its students for the Deutsches Sprachdiplom II der KMK, which makes it possible for these students to enter German universities. The school has some 114 pupils. Most of the school's pupils, however, have Czech as their mother tongue. It is a private school, but with subsidies from the Czech government and several funds from Germany, it is not all that expensive to receive an education in this school.[4]
 
In 1997, the Bernard Bolzano Primary School opened its doors in Tábor. This is a Czech-German school with extended language lessons. In addition, there is the Soukromá ZŠ nemecko-ceského porozumení, a private primary school of “German-Czech Understanding” in Prague. This school was also founded by the Union of Germans in the Pragueand Central Bohemia Region.  This school's pupils are from German or Czech origin, but pupils from other ethnic groups (e.g. Slovak, Polish, Serbian, Chinese, Russian, Vietnamese, Ukrainian) also attend this school. German is taught here as an elective subject from the first grade onwards. The German government supports the school, finances teaching materials and has assigned a German language teacher.[5]   In addition, the Czech Education Ministry has also  supported the establishment of bilingual Czech-German grammar schools in Pragueand Liberec.[6]
 
Still, the situation for the German language community in the Czech Republic does not look good. Most of the youngsters belonging to the community only learned Czech at school, and almost all of the grandparents who spoke German with their grandchildren have died by now.
According to the Czech government, it is not possible to set up an education system for the German minority, because “persons belonging to the German national minority are dispersed throughout the Czech Republic as a result of state policy after the Second World War”. In practice this means that, according to Czech law, there are insufficient numbers of students in individual cities or municipalities to open German schools. Nevertheless, German is taught as a subject in many schools, also on pre-primary level.[7]
 
Polish education in the Czech Republic
 
The situation of the Poles in the Czech Republic is considerably better; something which can already be noticed in education. Actually, the Polish minority is the only national minority in the Czech Republic with a fully developed school system and network, with all subjects taught in the minority language. There is a reason for that. In two Czech districts on the Czech-Polish border, Frydek-Mistek and Karvina, more than 8 per cent of the local population belong to the Polish minority. Therefore, this region has a Polish education system, from pre-school institutions to the level of high schools and specialized secondary schools. The Polish Pedagogical Centre in Cesky Tesin takes care of the publication of text books and methodical aids. The Centre was founded by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.[8]
 
According to the Second Report of the Czech Republic, submitted in accordance with the 2004 Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, schools providing instruction in the Polish language are attended by almost 4000 pupils (including 700 children at kindergartens, 2300 primary school pupils and almost 500 secondary school students).[9] In addition, there are various secondary schools with a bilingual Czech-Polish stream (340 pupils). There is an education centre for these schools where learning materials are developed and published, and where teachers are educated. Most primary school teachers are educated in Poland.[10]
 
At university level, Polish is taught at the University of Ostrava, where teachers who will be employed in the educational system of the Polish minority can also make use of training facilities. In addition, in 1990, a Unit for Research of the Polish Ethnic Group in the Czech Republic (Kabinet pro výzkum polského etnika v Ceské republice) was established at Ostrava University.[11]
 
Roma education in the Czech Republic
 
Most of the Czech Roma’s died in the Nazi Holocaust. After 1945, many Roma’s from the area of today's Slovakia moved to the area of the present-day Czech Republic. The Roma situation in the Czech Republic is not very favourable: there are no schools were the Romany language is the medium of instruction, although since 1998 the language has been taught as a subject at eleven “junior” secondary schools.[12]
 
Because of a language handicap (most Roma children only speak Romany) and different social standards, many Roma parents consider it better for their children to attend special (remedial) schools. The Czech Ministry of Education, however, tries to solve this problem by organising preparatory classes for Roma children, where Romany is also a medium of instruction. According to the Euromosaic report on Romany in the Czech Republic, there were more than 110 preparatory classes (1364 pupils) in the school year 2000/2001,  and in the school year 2002/2003 there were 116 preparatory classes (1489 pupils). According to the same Euromosaic report, however, the teaching of Romany as a medium of instruction, apart from these preparatory classes, is “virtually non-existent” in the Czech education system, although the Romany language is included as a subject in the curricula of some secondary schools.[13]
In the First Report submitted by the Czech Republic in accordance with the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, one can read that the language of most Roma children is the Roma language: “they speak a Czech-Roma dialect, which is not sufficiently developed.”[14] However, the Second Report of 2004 states the following:
 
“One of the problems associated with Roma education is that the present schools catering for pupils from different sociocultural background are mostly attended by Roma children, who, at least at the beginning, find it hard to communicate in the Czech language. Since most of them speak a Czech-Slovak ethnolect, it would be out of the question to use the Roma language as an auxiliary language of instruction in head-start and first-grade classes.”
 
Also, in the same article of the same report, one can read that “there is a real danger that the ongoing spontaneous cultural and linguistic assimilation, especially in the younger Roma generation, will wipe out Roma cultural traditions, folklore and language”.[15] In this perspective, it is rather strange that it is “out of the question to use the Roma language as an auxiliary language”. The question arises how it can be that in 1999 most Roma children are reported to speak a Czech variety of Romany and in 2004 a“Czech-Slovak ethnolect”.  It makes one wonder whether linguistic assimilation proceeds that fast.
 
In order to eliminate discrimination of Roma’s and to “radically change the present situation of Roma children whose education often stops at the lowest level”, the Czech government wants to appoint assistant teachers (“Roma pedagogic assistants”) recruited mostly from the Roma community. These assistant teachers should make the Roma children feel more at ease in an educational environment and should improve communication between the schools on the one hand and Roma pupils and their parents on the other. According to the Second Report, a separate system of Roma minority education is not necessary.[16]In 1998, however, a Roma school was established in the private sector by the Doctor Rajko Djuri Foundation: the Roma  Social Secondary School(Romská strední škola sociální) in Kolín, near Prague.[17]
 
 
Slovakian in education in the Czech Republic
 
Although the Slovak minority is the largest minority group in the Czech Republic (208,723 people: 2 per cent of the total population), no Slovak is taught in pre-primary, primary or secondary education, and the same holds good for technical and vocational schools. Until recently, there used to be a Slovak language primary school in the Czech Republic. In the report Lesser-used languages in states applying for EU Membership, written in 2001under the authority of the European Parliament, one can read that a Slovak-medium primary school with 100 pupils still exists. However, the Euromosaic report on Slovak in the Czech Republic states the following:[18]
 
“In the first half of the 90s, the primary school in Karviná was the only operational Slovak school in the territory of the CR, but it ceased to exist at the end of the millennium owing to a low number of pupils.”
 
Until the division of Czechoslovakiain 1993, the Slovak language was part of the school curricula. After 1993, this was no longer the case, although some institutions continued teaching Slovak. According to the Euromosaic study mentioned earlier, Slovak is now only taught at university level in the Czech Republic(Departments of Czech/Slavic studies at the Masaryk University in Brno and the Charles University in Prague).  According to Pfeil (2002), the planned opening of a Slovak grammar school, launched by the association Obec Slovákov v Ceskej republike in the school year 1997/1998, had to be cancelled because of a lack of enrolments for the school.[19] In the Euromosaic report on Slovak in the Czech Republic, one can read that a survey conducted in the nineteen-eighties revealed that most Slovaks did not feel the need for Slovak-medium education for their children. One can read the same thing in the above-mentioned report written under the authority of the European Parliament:
 
“Despite several attempts to create them, few Slovaks feel the need for schools in their language.”
 
Still, it remains remarkable: in Prague , where thousands of Slovak people live, there has never been one single Slovak-medium school.
 
 
Other language minorities in the Czech  Republic [20]
 
The other minority languages spoken in the Czech Republic are hardly represented in education. There is a Bulgarian school in Prague, the Petr Beron School, but this school is connected to the Embassy of the Republic of Bulgaria , and therefore also connected to the Bulgarian education system. Nevertheless, extended teaching of Czech is part of this school's curriculum. Bulgarian can also be studied at university level in the Czech Republic , in Departments of Slavonic Studies. One can also study Croatian in such departments at university level, but there are no Croatian-medium schools.
 
Because of the repatriation of large numbers of Greeks, Greek schools are disappearing. In the school year 2000/2001, the language was taught as a subject at schools in several cities (with a total number of 190 students).
 
Hungarian can be studied at university level as well: for more than a century, it has been possible to study Hungarian philology at the CharlesUniversity in Prague. In addition, the Association of Hungarians living in the Czech Lands (Svaz Madaru zijicich v ceskych zemich) offers Hungarian language courses for children from Hungarian families.
 
There still is a major group of people in the Czech Republic who consider Russian to be their mother tongue (18,746 people). For that reason, it is no surprise that Russian is still taught in a number of primary schools and high schools. According to the Euromosaic report on other languages in the Czech Republic, the re-opening of a Czech-Russian high school was planned for 2004. It is unknown whether this opening actually took place.
 
There is no education in the Ruthenian language in the Czech Republic. The same more or less applies to Ukrainian, although there is a primary school - the Ridna Škola - supported by the Ukrainian Initiative in the Czech Republic. However, it is unknown how much Ukrainian is taught at that particular school.

 
Conclusion
 
It can be concluded that the Polish language group is actually the only language group with its own (Polish) education system. The main reason for this lies in the fact that the Poles tend to live in concentrated groups in one region, close to the Czech-Polish border, whereas most other language minorities are scattered throughout the whole of the Czech Republic . This is for example true for (what is left of) the German language group in Czechia: the number of native speakers of German stands at 41,328, according to the official data. By comparison, according to the same data, there are 50,738 people in Czechia who speak Polish as their mother tongue.  As a result of state policy after World War II, Germans have been dispersed throughout the Czech Republic, and certain minimum numbers of minority language speakers are needed in municipalities to set up separate schools where the minority language is the medium of instruction.
 
A separate education system for the Roma group and the integration of the Roma language in education seems to be out of the question in the Czech context. This is remarkable, because many Roma children suffer from a language handicap. Moreover, most Roma children are sent to special schools: it is difficult for Roma’s to join regular, mainstream education.
 
It is striking to see that the Slovak language is hardly represented in school curricula or as a medium of instruction in schools in Czechia. Attempts to set up Slovak schools have failed so far. Still, the Slovak language group is the largest language minority in the Czech Republic, with, according to the 2001 census, 208,723 native speakers.
 
The Czech Republic is the only one of the new member states that has not yet ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, apart from the Baltic states(none of these states even signed the Charter). As the Czech government admits in its monitoring reports within the scope of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, a lot has still to be done in the field of minority language education in the Czech context.


Results of the 2001 census (situation on 1 March 2001), taken from the Second Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (2004), articles 136-141.
 
 
 

  
Bibliography
 
CzechRepublic. First Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities(1999).
 
CzechRepublic. Second Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities(2004)
 
The Euromosaic study:
-         German  in the Czech  Republic
-         Polish in the Czech  Republic
-         Romani in the Czech  Republic
-         Slovak in the Czech Republic
-         Other languages in the Czech Republic
 
Pan, C & B.S. Pfeil. 2002. Ethnos. Minderheitenrechte in Europa. Handbuch der europaïschen Volksgruppen. Vienna: Braumüller.
 
Vaughan, D. 2002. Ethnic German Minorities in the CzechRepublic, Polandand Slovakia.Radio Prague(www.radio.cz; 23-04-’02).
 
Winther, P (ed.). 2001. Lesser-used languages in states applying for EU Membership. European Parliament. Directorate-General for Research. Working Paper. Abridges edition.
 
 
Online sources
 
- www.radio.cz 
- http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/lang/languages/langmin/euromosaic/index_nl.html
 
 
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[1]Second Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1999), article 12, paragraph 101.
[2]First Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1999), article 14, paragraph 1.
[3]Winther, P (ed.). 2001. Lesser-used languages in states applying for EU Membership. European Parliament. Directorate-General for Research. Working Paper. Abridges edition, p. 10.
[4]Vaughan, D. 2002. Ethnic German Minorities in the CzechRepublic, Polandand Slovakia.Radio Prague(www.radio.cz; 23-04-’02).
[5]http://europa.eu.int - The Euromosaic study: German in the CzechRepublic(2005)
[6]Second Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (2004), article 13.
[7]First Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1999), article 13.
[8]First Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1999), article 14, paragraph 2/3.
[9]Second Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (2004), article 14, paragraph 124.
[10]Winther, P (ed.). 2001. Lesser-used languages in states applying for EU Membership. European Parliament. Directorate-General for Research. Working Paper. Abridges edition, p. 11
[11]http://europa.eu.int - The Euromosaic study: Polish in the Czech Republic(2005).
[12]Winther, P (ed.). 2001. Lesser-used languages in states applying for EU Membership. European Parliament. Directorate-General for Research. Working Paper. Abridges edition, p. 11.
[13]http://europa.eu.int - The Euromosaic study: Romani in the Czech Republic(2005).
[14]First Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (1999), article 12, paragraph 3.
[15]Second Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (2004), article 5, paragraph 30.
[16]Second Report submitted by the Czech Republic pursuant to article 25, paragraph 1 of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (2004), article 5, paragraph 20-21.
[17]http://europa.eu.int - The Euromosaic study: Romani in the Czech Republic(2005).
[18]http://europa.eu.int - The Euromosaic study: Slovak in the Czech Republic(2005).
[19]Pan, C & B.S. Pfeil. 2002. Ethnos. Minderheitenrechte in Europa. Handbuch der europaïschen Volksgruppen, s. 468.
[20]Information based on  the Euromosaic study Other languages in the Cze