Country report

1. STEM education

The share of students enrolled in STEM programmes is relatively higher in VET than in tertiary education compared to the EU average. In 2023, 24.9% of all students were enrolled in STEM programmes at the tertiary level, below the EU average of 26.9%, and the proposed EU target of 32%. Since 2015, the share of STEM students has slightly decreased (from 26.3%). Engineering, manufacturing and construction is losing popularity relative to other study fields (59.2% vs 44.6% of all STEM students between 2015 and 2023), while the share of students enrolling in information and communication technology (ICT) has grown since 2015. 4.4% of all doctoral students pursue ICT, more than in the EU (3.8%), but only 19.4% of them are women (EU: 24.3%), although their share has substantially increased (from 12.0%) since 2015. In medium-level vocational education and training (VET), the share of students in STEM subjects, at 42%, is well above the EU average, (EU: 36.3%) and nearing the EU-level target of at least 45% by 2030. However, only a fraction of these students (12.7%) are female, compared to 15.4% in the EU.

Women attain higher levels of education than men but are less likely to pursue successful careers as scientists. The share of women graduating from higher education is steadily growing, including in STEM programmes (from 34.5% in 2015 to 37.7% in 2023), although there is still a significant gap between female enrolment in STEM (33%) and in tertiary education in general (57%). At doctoral level, women make up 38.3% of students in STEM (EU: 38%). However, they encounter bottlenecks when transitioning from studies to employment in STEM fields. Women only represent around 24.5% of researchers in the natural sciences, which is among the lowest in European comparison (Třísková, 2024). This gap between attainment and employment is explained by factors dissuading early career researchers from pursuing scientific careers, such as the perceived incompatibility of motherhood and academic life (Cidlinská, 2019) and a lack of female role models in higher positions. Only 15.7% of professors are women, as opposed to 54.7% of all lecturers (Třísková, 2024). Possible solutions include mentoring and sensitising male-dominated professions. For example, the non-profit organisation Czechitas works on opening up ICT careers to girls and women.

STEM education is a cross-cutting policy priority, but there is a lack of long-term skills forecasting. Czechia does not have a dedicated national policy strategy for STEM education; however, policy ambitions are embedded in other strategic documents. The Education Policy Strategy 2030+ recognises the need to enhance STEM education at all levels and the Long-term Plan for Education (2023-2027) underlines the need to respond to the acute shortage of workers, particularly in ICT and cybersecurity, and to attract more women to technical vocations. Strengthening STEM education also appears in other sectoral strategies, such as the Digital Education Strategy and the National Research, Development and Innovation Policy. The National Semiconductor Strategy aims to establish a system to promote STEM subjects in primary and secondary education and support relevant study programmes in higher education, also with a view to attracting foreign talent, to realise the goal of 9 000 professionals working in the semiconductor industry by 2029. Regions have set their own STEM targets: the South Moravian Region, for example, aims to increase the number of applicants for STEM study programmes by 30% by 2028/29 (see Box). Czechia currently lacks a long-term skills forecasting mechanism: the KOMPAS project (2017-2022) financed by the European Social Fund produced a valuable methodology and data for general labour market predictions, but is yet to be institutionalised (OECD, 2025b). KOMPAS predicts that the demand for tertiary educated workers will increase by 16% by 2026, and an even more in fields such as civil engineering, ICT and the natural sciences (OECD, 2025a).

Understanding young people’s motivations and addressing teacher shortages are key for attracting students to STEM. Drivers behind young people’s choice to study STEM subjects are not mapped systematically, but available regional data indicates that societal perceptions of STEM studies (such as the difficulty of studies) and professions (such as earnings), as well as access to quality information about STEM career opportunities shape Czech students’ interest and motivation (Trexima et al., 2024). While parental influence over school choice is significant (Galová, 2024), classroom disciplinary climate and teacher support are influential in forming pupils’ interest in natural sciences (Caspi & Gorsky, 2024). However, teacher shortages in STEM subjects (physics, mathematics and ICT) are particularly acute across Czechia (OECD, 2025a). The share of inadequately qualified teachers in mathematics could reach 30% by 2035 if current trends continue (Koucký, 2025). In 2025, the Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU) launches seven new master’s programmes in mathematics, physics and chemistry, as well as vocational subjects, to prepare future secondary school teachers, supported under Czechia’s recovery and resilience plan (RRP).

2. Early childhood education and care

Participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) among younger children is slowly improving but it is still significantly below the EU level. In 2023, 85.3% of children between the age of 3 and the start of compulsory primary schooling were enrolled in ECEC, against an EU average of 94.6%. Participation has been stagnating in the past years and still has not caught up with the pre-pandemic level (2019). The participation of Roma children in ECEC remains low, but stable (48% in 2024 vs 51% in 2021 (FRA, 2025)). In 2024, 7.3% of children under three attended formal childcare, which represents a substantial increase compared to 2023 (4.5%) and is on track towards the 12% national target for 2030. At the same time, this share is still the second the lowest in the EU (average: 39.2%). ERDF will help to create around 9 700 new places in the kindergartens and children’s groups by 2029.

Efforts are underway to bridge the gap between childcare and pre-primary education. In Czechia, the governance of ECEC is split between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Until now, there has been limited coordination between the two systems, and childcare services lack robust monitoring. As a result, it is challenging to map supply and demand dynamics and adjust the offer to the diverse needs of parents, including more flexible and affordable options. Thanks to a project supported by the EU’s Technical Support Instrument, the two ministries endorsed a new quality and monitoring framework for all types of ECEC services for children aged 0-6, with a set of indicators based on EU guidance and more systemic monitoring of childcare services (Simonová et al., 2025). A new legislative amendment creates the conditions for collecting data on children’s attendance in children’s groups, which will be used in combination with kindergarten data to map capacities. To enable the full implementation of the new framework, the project experts recommend investing in data collection capacities and infrastructure and covering ECEC facilities outside of the formal system (Straková et al., 2024).

Challenges remain to remove financial barriers and to recruit qualified staff. The legal framework obliges municipalities to provide children with kindergarten placement for children aged three and above, but regulations on establishing kindergartens are stricter, therefore local authorities are often incentivised to set up children groups instead. However, these facilities are currently not required to implement the pre-primary curricula and often carry higher fees. While the government provides support for low-income families (European Commission, 2024a), even after accounting for this, the net childcare costs for a family with two children aged 3 and under represent around 15% of disposable household income, which is high in international comparison (OECD, 2023). Furthermore, Czechia has one of the highest proportions in the EU of ECEC staff that are over 50 years old (38.7% in 2023). Around 75% of kindergartens use EU funds, and over 3 000 opted to hire school assistants in the latest ESF+ call, indicating a clear staffing need.

Czechia is introducing a modernised curriculum for kindergartens. At the end of 2024 the Ministry approved the new framework educational programme for pre-primary education. It aims to strengthen an inclusive approach and supports individual development according to the child’s needs (MEYS, 2024). Kindergartens will have to implement it from September 2026.

3. School education and basic skills

Czech pupils have strong mathematics and science skills but are less creative than their European peers. According to the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS), Czech primary school pupils in the fourth and eighth grades perform above the average compared to their peers in EU countries . In mathematics, both fourth and eighth graders’ average performance is slowly improving since 2007. The share of top performers (9% in grade 4 and 10% in grade 8) has stayed above the EU average (7.4% in grade 4 and 7% in grade 8). The share of underachievers has remained stable in the fourth grade in the past ten years (at 22%, EU average: 30%), but the achievement gap for the same cohort widened between 2019 and 2023. In science, there has been a significant deterioration of average results in both grades compared to the previous rounds, but the proportion of top and low performers remain above and below the EU average. However, Czech 15-year-olds scored only a little above the average level of 23 EU countries in creative thinking and they reported comparatively low confidence and openness to creativity (OECD, 2024b). The lack of pre-service preparation of teachers to integrate creativity in the pedagogical process and the low participation of students in extracurricular activities were identified as contributing factors (Klement, Boudová, & Tomášek, 2024).

Czech students are top performers in digital skills. Czech eighth graders ranked the highest in the 2023 International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) among 22 EU education systems, demonstrating strong digital skills (European Commission, 2024b). However, 28% of students did not reach the baseline proficiency level (up from 15% in 2013), which is still far from the 2030 target of 15% (EU average 43%). The results suggest consistent digital competence levels across students: differences between high and low achievers and students with different parental education backgrounds are relatively small.

High average results mask stark educational inequalities. Only 15.3% of students from disadvantaged backgrounds perform well in at least one basic skill (EU: 16.3%), compared to 65.1% of advantaged students. Students in elite multi-year schools by far outperform their peers in basic schools (integrated structures for primary and lower secondary), accounting for the lion’s share of top performers, mostly from advantaged backgrounds, from an early age. Over half of eighth graders in such schools achieved the highest levels of mathematical knowledge in TIMSS 2023, and only 9% scored at or below the lowest skill level, as opposed to 34% of students attending basic schools (Klement, Boudová, Janoušková, et al., 2024b). Students in multi-year grammar schools are also ahead of their peers in digital skills by third-quarter of a skill level (Halbová et al., 2024). These schools are in high demand, but the number of places is constant, representing around 10% of students (Hřebecký, 2025). Highly selective entrance examinations put pressure on both children and parents, creating unintended effects, such as growing demand for private tutoring, which increases with early academic tracking (Šťastný, 2023). This contributes to between-track differences and exacerbates the impact of socio-economic background on educational outcomes (Straková et al., 2017). Differences in educational quality are also attributed to the regional fragmentation of schools (OECD, 2025a). From 2025, municipalities will be required to merge smaller schools under their remit to increase operational, administrative and pedagogical efficiency, and they will also receive tax incentives if they pool resources with other municipalities.

Roma children continue to be educated in segregated settings, barring them from access to quality education. In 2024, 58% of Roma children aged 5-16 attended schools where the majority of their classmates are Roma (FRA, 2025) and around one-third follow a curriculum with reduced learning outcomes (National Pedagogical Institute, 2024). A newly launched cooperation between the Ministries of Education and Regional Development, the National Pedagogical Institute and PAQ Research is supporting desegregation efforts in six municipalities. As part of a large-scale project supporting disadvantaged schools under the RRP, the National Pedagogical Institute published a methodology for primary schools to identify socially disadvantaged pupils in need of increased support. The 2025 European Semester country-specific recommendations call for further action to support disadvantaged schools and Roma pupils.

Czechia aims to boost basic skills through curriculum revision. As of 2025, 100 schools are piloting the new primary school curriculum, which places greater emphasis on mathematical reasoning, computational thinking and inquiry-based learning. Effective support in translating the curricular guidance into teaching is essential, as Czech teachers have little experience with modern approaches to science education and teaching around a common theme (Novosák et al., 2024). Czechia also has the highest share of pupils, n EU comparison, whose teachers never carry out science experiments (43%) and science teachers are expressing growing interest in further education, addressing students' individual needs, and integrating science into other subjects (Klement, Boudová, Janoušková, et al., 2024a).

4. Vocational education and training

Czechia is expanding a combined secondary education pathway to delay tracking and develop the foundational skills of all students. Among others, due to limited placements in general secondary schools, many students, especially those with less family support, may enrol in less competitive vocational schools, leading to early specialisation. 2025 saw an increase in applications for programmes leading to a school-leaving examination (“maturita”) that entitles students to apply for tertiary studies (78% of applicants), while interest for those leading to an apprenticeship certificate, without access to higher education, declined further (MEYS, 2025). International comparison shows that in 2018, Czech VET programmes ranked among the lowest in social prestige in Europe (Korbel & Münich, 2021). VET graduates are less likely to access and successfully complete higher education than their peers who graduate from general secondary education (OECD, 2025a). In response to growing interest in general education, Czechia is piloting the expansion of an existing study pathway, the lyceum 2.0, which combines general and vocational subjects and has a strong emphasis on broader general knowledge and skills, including applied STEM education. It also provides students with more flexibility to explore various VET specialisations before committing to one. 30 schools are testing the new model until 2032 (CEDEFOP, 2025). In 2025, the Council of the EU recommended that Czechia improve access to general secondary education and enable students to transition between general and vocational education.

A large-scale reform in upper secondary vocational education aims to improve labour market relevance, including in STEM. The Czech economy faces a rising challenge in finding employees with the necessary technical and analytical skills to keep pace with digital transformation. According to a survey by the Association of Business Service Leaders (ABSL), 63% percent of companies in IT and business services report a shortage of skilled talent (ABSL, 2025). However, vocational schools struggle to keep up with rapid changes especially in the STEM area and are slow to adapt their teaching methods (Korbel & Münich, 2021).

As a response, an objective of the 2030+ Education Policy Strategy is to discontinue outdated and overlapping subjects and encourage interdisciplinary strands in related fields, such as electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and information science. In 2025, the National Pedagogical Institute prepared a proposal for innovation in specialist vocational fields, and the major revision of the comprehensive education component of the framework curricula for upper secondary vocational education is currently in preparation.

Work-based learning in VET is still to be developed. The share of VET graduates who participated in work-based learning is among the lowest in the EU at 13.4% in 2024 (EU: 65.2%), far from the EU-level target of 60%, and it has declined by 3.2 pps compared to 2023. Despite the existence of tax rebates for companies providing training, they are not sufficiently incentivised: there is a lack national standards identifying quality criteria for the training provision and investment in continuous VET is very low, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises (OECD, 2025a). To expand work-based learning opportunities that can increase the long-term employability of VET graduates, a recent OECD analysis recommends (i) setting clear rules on the content, duration and assessment criteria for training, (ii) enhancing collaboration between VET schools and stakeholders and (iii) creating financial incentives for both schools and employers (OECD, 2025a).

5. Tertiary education

Tertiary educational attainment remains low, despite high demand for graduates. In 2024, only 33.5% of young people aged 25 to 34 held a tertiary degree, a 1.4 pps drop since 2021. This is below both the national target of 35% and the EU-level target of 45% by 2030 (EU average: 44.2%). Compared to 2015, the number of students enrolled in tertiary education has dropped by 14%. On the one hand, this is explained by demographic changes to some extent, and the trend is expected to continue in future: by 2050, student cohorts are projected to shrink by 10.5%. On the other hand, early tracking in school education and financial barriers (European Commission, 2024a) hamper the participation of students from vulnerable backgrounds or with low parental education. The wage premium for tertiary educated workers is high: their income exceeds 162% of the earnings of those who only completed upper secondary education (OECD, 2024a, 2025a).

Over one third of students drop out of tertiary education without obtaining a degree. 58% of students enrolled in bachelor’s programmes at public institutions in 2018 successfully graduated by 2023, while 36% did not complete their studies and are no longer in tertiary education. Reasons include low financial support, high levels of student employment, insufficient career guidance (European Commission, 2024a) and mismatches between the programme and student expectations (Pikálková et al., 2014). Drop-out rates are particularly high in the fields of agriculture (47%), services (44%) and ICT (41%). 13% of students initially enrolled in natural sciences, mathematics and statistics end up graduating in a different field.

Czechia is diversifying its higher education landscape by introducing micro-credentials and short-cycle tertiary education. These efforts underpin the expansion of access to tertiary education and work to address skills gaps, by providing more flexible and diverse study options. With the support of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and the Technical Support Instrument (TSI) Czechia is working towards a uniform approach to micro-credentials. Under the RRF, Czech universities have started to develop micro-credentials at tertiary level. The aim of the ongoing TSI project is to align existing measures under a single overarching national strategy, and to broaden the scope of existing initiatives to include VET and adult learning settings. In a new amendment to the Education Act, Czechia is also planning to introduce short-cycle tertiary programmes at higher vocational schools, previously not part of the system. These will be one or two years in duration and will aim to provide a flexible response to the needs of the labour market.

6. Adult skills and learning

Adult participation in lifelong learning remains low, limiting the development of skills for the green and digital transitions. In 2022, only 21.2% of adults aged 25-64 participated in formal or non-formal learning in the previous 12 months, compared to the EU average of 39.5%. This is 23.8 pps short of the national 2030 target of 45%. In EU comparison, Czechia has a relatively low potential for further education, represented by the low proportion of people who would like to extend their current participation in education. While the EU average was 25%, only 9% of Czechs wanted to pursue more education (Czech Statistical Office, 2024). The most common reason for non-participation in education is the belief that it is not needed, that the person's existing range of knowledge and skills is sufficient.

Czechia is expanding opportunities for lifelong learning with EU support. ESF+ finances a programme of requalification organised by Czech Labour Offices. The Czech RRP supports the promotion of life-long learning by setting up a tripartite mechanism involving the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Education, employers and trade union representatives. Furthermore, under the RRP, public universities have established strategic partnerships with third parties relevant for green skills education – for example businesses, research institutions and social organisations. Among other things, these partnerships support the development of lifelong learning courses aimed at the general public on topics related to sustainability.