The number of foreign students in Czech schools rose once again in 2019

Prague, Aug 8 (CTK) – The number of foreign children in Czech schools and kindergartens further increased in 2019, the Interior Ministry writes in its report on migration, adding that the strongest groups among these kids were still Ukrainians, Slovaks, Vietnamese and Russians.

About 12,000 children of 111 nationalities attended kindergartens in Czechia in 2019, including 76 asylum holders, the report says, adding that the number of foreign kids in Czech kindergartens has been raising annually.

The proportion of the nationalities between these children remains almost unchanged, with Ukrainians forming the largest group (2,963), followed by Vietnamese (2,843), Slovaks (2,053) and Russians (794).

There are 5,304 kindergartens attended by over 363,000 children in the Czech Republic, according to the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) data.

As for elementary schools, the numbers of foreign pupils in them have also been rising, which is a challenge for the school system to integrate these children in education, the ministry writes in the report.

In the school year 2019-20, a total of 26,527 foreign pupils attended Czech elementary schools, including 308 with the asylum status. Out of them, 7,569 were Ukrainians, 5,418 Slovaks, 5,119 Vietnamese and 1,708 Russians.

A total of 374 foreign kids attended preparatory classes in the last school year.

A total of 9,496 foreigners attended secondary schools in Czechia, the frequency of individual nationalities copying the elementary school data, with Ukrainian students being the most numerous (2,909), followed by Slovaks (1,806), Vietnamese (1,690) and Russians (1,059).

A total of 219 foreigners studied at conservatories, including 74 Slovaks, 46 Russians and 39 Ukrainians.

A total of 732 foreigners studied at colleges, and 46,442 at universities, out of whom 22,885 attended Bachelor’s programmes and 19,017 Master’s programmes.

The highest number of foreign students at universities came from Slovakia (21,105), Russia (6,221), Ukraine (3,622) and Kazakhstan (1,970).

The number of foreign students at Czech universities has been steadily rising. At the end of 2019, it was higher by 1,771 than in the preceding year, and they made up 16.1 percent of all university students, a 1-percent increase year-on-year, the report writes.