Babiš Wants to Bring Back the Option for First-Graders to "Drop Down" to Kindergarten

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has announced plans to reinstate so-called additional school start deferrals — a mechanism that allowed a child struggling with the first-grade curriculum to return to kindergarten partway through the school year. He revealed the plan in a Facebook video in early August, instructing officials to draft the relevant legislation.

Enrollment data show that in recent years, one-fifth to as much as a quarter of children had their school start deferred — often for reasons unrelated to health or readiness for learning. The additional deferrals, scrapped by parliament as of this school year, previously required only a decision from the school principal and parental consent.

Experts Sound the Alarm

Education Minister Martin Plaga opposes reviving the practice. "Put simply, this means a child 'failing back' into kindergarten. No other country in Europe still has this kind of tool," the minister said, promising to prepare a comprehensive position based on data from the first year the limited deferrals have been in effect.

Lenka Felcmanová, head of the SOFA organization, believes bringing back the practice would harm children. "For a child, this is an overwhelming sense of failure. A lifelong attitude toward learning forms right after starting school, and if a child fails as early as first grade, that negative experience stays with them," she explained, adding that an extra six months in kindergarten — where the child has to adapt all over again — usually doesn't help at that point.

ANO Deputies Themselves Voted for the Ban

Due to the excessive number of deferrals, Chamber of Deputies lawmakers — including members of the ANO movement — unanimously agreed a year ago to gradually restrict the practice, and banned additional deferrals altogether starting this school year. The Education Ministry hasn't yet had time to evaluate the ban given how recently it took effect, but the prime minister, acting on his adviser's recommendation, is already planning to reverse the decision.

Babiš's adviser, Ms. Žanová, explained to him that additional deferrals are needed for cases where a child's lack of maturity only becomes apparent once schooling is already underway: "This isn't about a student failing to grasp the material — it's about, say, a child crying for two months straight, developing psychological problems, and refusing to go to school." According to her, officials have discussed a possible safeguard requiring a mandatory assessment at a pedagogical-psychological counseling center, so the process wouldn't be as simple as it once was. Žanová herself admits that in ten years of working in schools, she encountered such cases only twice.

She also believes children should be returned not to kindergarten but to preparatory classes, which, under the ministry's plans, will continue to operate even after 2029 despite the legislation already passed. However, not every school offers such classes, meaning children would often have to travel to a different school to attend one.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz