Czech Education Minister Denies Rumours of Scrapping Ninth Grade

Czech Education Minister Robert Plaga has stated that the government is not considering scrapping ninth grade in schools, despite a proposal from Chamber of Deputies Speaker Tomio Okamura. The minister made the announcement on Wednesday in an interview with iRozhlas, following a discussion of the issue with Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.

"I can reassure everyone, including on the basis of my conversation with the Prime Minister — this is not going to happen. To me, this is silly-season nonsense and yet another flare shot up by Tomio Okamura," Plaga said, rejecting the speaker's initiative.

According to the minister, he had already discussed the matter with Babiš on Tuesday, after the Prime Minister noted following Monday's cabinet meeting that he was specifically waiting to hear Plaga's position on the topic. The minister stressed that, even before those consultations, he had unequivocally rejected the idea from the Chamber Speaker — while also pointing out that Okamura is not a member of the government.

"Talk about saving money on education by scrapping something sounds nice, but it doesn't work in practice," Plaga noted, adding that he backs up his position with calculations and research.

The minister also disputed Okamura's claim that the move could save 50 billion crowns a year. According to Plaga, that figure was checked both by the Ministry of Finance and by the Education Ministry's own analytical unit. "And those 50 billion crowns are pure fabrication. It sounds nice, but the figure is unrealistic," the minister said.

The outcome of his talks with the Prime Minister is this: any potential scrapping of ninth grade "is simply not on the agenda." "We've established that the promised instant savings are a dead end — and one based on unreliable information, at that," Plaga explained.

He noted that the government's policy statement makes no mention of any such changes whatsoever, and said he has plenty of arguments to convince his coalition partners that this is fiction, not reality.

"So I can reassure parents and schools: this definitely won't happen by September 1, 2026, or 2027," the education minister added, noting that the same is 99% likely to hold true for September 1, 2029, as well.

Source: novinky.cz