Inclusion in Czech schools: what the Motorists propose in 2026

The Motorists party, part of the governing coalition, proposes changing the rules of inclusion in regular primary schools. According to a draft that the Novinky outlet says it has obtained, a principal could refuse a child with support measures of the first to third level, depending on how many such children are already in the class. The topic is currently a hot one inside the coalition.

Last week, Motorists leader and Foreign Minister Petr Macinka said on the programme Ptám se já that in inclusion “not one stone will be left standing on another”. He said it would be foolish to send a child with a physical disability but a sound mind to a separate class. It might seem that the target is children with intellectual disabilities or behavioural problems, but the proposals affect roughly 160,000 pupils to whom schools provide some form of support, including children with dyslexia. All of them fall under inclusion, that is, joint education in regular schools. In total, about a million children attend primary schools.

What could change

Under the Motorists’ plan, even children who need only a small amount of support could lose the right to a school in their catchment area. Today schools adapt teaching, for example, for children with dysgraphia and dyslexia, vision, hearing or speech impairments, ADHD, children from socially disadvantaged families, and also autistic children. If many such children end up in one class, principals could start refusing them.

In effect, this would mean a cap on such pupils. The draft stipulates that if a class already has a pupil with level-three support, a pupil with level-two support could not be in it. Parents of such children could not be sure that their local school, or any other regular school, would admit them.

How support works now

Schools themselves decide on first-level measures, while counselling centres decide on levels two to five, and only for a limited period. As a result, children can both gain and lose support as needed, even in the middle of a school year.

According to Ministry of Education statistics, in the 2025/2026 school year there were 159,875 pupils with support measures in regular primary-school classes: 40,253 at level one, 75,111 at level two, 41,824 at level three, 2,642 at level four and 45 at level five.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz