About 90 percent of our graduates go on to teach, says Pavel Mentlík, Dean of FPE UWB

Teachers, reforms and finances. These were not the only topics of the interview in the university radio Wéčko with the dean of the Faculty of Education of UWB Pavel Mentlík, who will become the chairman of the Association of Deans of Faculties of Education in July. Listen to the audio version.

Pavel Mentlík, the dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen (FPE UWB), will soon become the chair of the Association of Deans of Faculties of Education. "This is not an elected position, the deans of faculties of education are democratically rotated, and now it's up to Pilsen. However, the deans of the other faculties of education vote on whether they agree to a particular faculty taking over the chairmanship, so it is to some extent a prestigious matter," said Pavel Mentlík.

What is the general situation with faculties of education in the Czech Republic? Are they more partners or more rivals? "I think that the shortage of qualified teachers is so significant that we have no need or reason to compete with each other. Of course, there are some differences between the faculties, but the cooperation between us works," the dean said.

"Faculties of education are said to be disconnected from practice. The opposite is true. There is an increasing emphasis on practice and it is led by so-called accompanying teachers who have been prepared for this role for a long time. And it is the preparation of and cooperation with accompanying teachers that the faculties of education are focusing on," Mentlík explained.

According to a survey by the Faculty of Education of the University of UWB, around 90 percent of the faculty's graduates have been going straight into practice, i.e. teaching, in the last few years. "This is of course very nice," the dean added.

Students of the faculties of education learn to understand the field they are studying, but they also learn how to pass it on to their students, i.e. how to teach: "They try to understand their field in depth so that they can pass on these basic concepts to children, pupils and students in their interconnectedness," the dean described the demands placed on today's teachers and continued: "Last but not least, there is a real emphasis on teacher competencies, on psychodidactic skills, on how to work with pupils and students in the classroom, how to attend to them individually and develop them so that they achieve the best results according to their expectations. "

Indicator P, the Framework Educational Programmes and what brought dean Pavel Mentlík into the world of pedagogy - you'll hear more in Czech in the interview below.