Czech inclusion reform: Minister Plaga under coalition pressure

The Czech government is due to discuss the long-prepared inclusive education reform on Monday. The plan by Education Minister Robert Plaga (ANO) is too mild for the Motorists and SPD, who promised voters to scrap inclusion entirely. Two ministers from ANO itself also have objections. Could the reform cost Plaga his seat? A news podcast episode looked at the question.

What Plaga wants to change

Inclusive education, in which children with various special needs study in mainstream schools, has been in place in Czechia for about ten years. According to Plaga, the amendment should professionalize and improve the system: for example, by making teaching assistants a stable part of schools and paying for them based on the number of pupils in a class and the children's needs, rather than on a recommendation for an individual pupil, as is the case now. Put simply, the draft could also make inclusion cheaper: today assistants cost the state about 10 billion crowns a year.

In the autumn the discussion stalled. In September the junior coalition partners, the Motorists and SPD, came out against the draft and demanded either radical changes or the complete abolition of inclusion. As the journalist recalls, abolition was in their manifestos even before the elections to the Chamber of Deputies, and a “weaker version” of the demand made it into the coalition agreement: a plan for substantial changes.

Doubts within ANO too

The dispute is not only with the partners. Regional Development Minister Zuzana Mrázová wrote on Facebook in early October that she was glad of the pause in the discussion and the chance to make new amendments: in her view, the school principal should have the final say, taking specialists' recommendations into account. Finance Minister Alena Schillerová is also reserved, and is mainly interested in costs and possible savings.

Plaga is on the defensive on other issues as well. This showed in the debate over the 2027 budget: the Education Ministry had money taken away, and although Schillerová found additional funds, there is still not enough, for example for higher education.

Resignation or not

In the view of the political reporter, Plaga is now spending a great deal of energy making sure that coalition partners and even fellow government members do not carve up his ministry. Media reported last week that Prime Minister and ANO leader Andrej Babiš may be preparing a reshuffle: the Environment Ministry would go to an ANO representative, and education would pass to the Motorists, for example to MP Matěj Gregor. The expert considers this plan more of a “trial balloon” to get Plaga and Environment Minister Igor Červený to try harder.

Against a reshuffle is the fact that Babiš hardly wants new protests from the professional community, which the appointment of a Motorist minister would provoke. Besides, Plaga has already shown he can persuade Babiš: he recently got him to drop the idea of replacing grades with verbal assessment, although the prime minister initially considered grades important. “I wouldn’t bet on him lasting until the end of the term, but I wouldn't write him off yet,” the expert concludes.

Source: seznamzpravy.cz