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If the overall length of compulsory education remained unchanged, the final year would simply be transferred to secondary school. It would therefore not mean less education, but an earlier choice of educational pathway. The age at which this decision is made can significantly affect not only the future of individual children but also the fairness and outcomes of the education system as a whole.

International comparisons show that successful education systems generally maintain a common, sufficiently demanding educational foundation until approximately the ages of fifteen or sixteen. This does not mean that all children learn in the same way. These systems do, however, give them more time to develop their abilities and interests before making decisions with long-term consequences. In Czechia, meanwhile, some children are already separated at the age of eleven when they leave for multi-year grammar schools. Czech pupils perform relatively well in international comparisons, but their results depend heavily on their family and social background.

Shortening basic education would not only affect some pupils. It would reduce the period of common education for most children. Making the decision later, by contrast, would allow it to be based on more years of schoolwork, a more stable understanding of one’s own abilities and interests, and greater involvement by the adolescents themselves.

Criticism of the current form of the ninth grade may be justified. Preparation for the standardised entrance examination narrows the curriculum, and the ninth grade can become a “waiting room for secondary school”. This, however, is not evidence that the ninth grade is unnecessary. It is a sign of a problem that abolishing the ninth grade would not solve. We would merely shift the pressure of entrance examinations by one year.

Instead, the ninth grade should provide a meaningful conclusion to basic education by connecting knowledge through more demanding projects, developing independence, encouraging the practical application of literacy skills and the ability to continue learning, and providing high-quality career guidance. The introduction of the revised Framework Educational Program also offers an opportunity to achieve this.

The proposal is moreover accompanied by the claim that abolishing the ninth grade would save public finances up to CZK 50 billion a year. However, the publicly available data do not currently support such savings. One year of basic education costs the state approximately CZK 15 billion, and a significant proportion of these costs would not disappear but would remain or be transferred to secondary schools. The remainder of the stated amount appears to be based primarily on the assumption that young people would complete their entire education and enter employment one year earlier. That, however, would require the whole educational pathway to be shortened, rather than merely transferring the final year of compulsory education from basic to secondary school.

The Czech education system faces problems that need to be addressed. Removing one year from basic school is presented as a relatively simple way to make savings, yet it currently lacks convincing support in the available data. Abolishing the ninth grade would not, in itself, improve the Czech education system. The available research gives us no convincing reason to shorten the period of common education. On the contrary, it warns us to carefully consider the consequences of separating children at an earlier age.

The commentary was written by Pavel Mentlík, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. He is responding to a recent proposal by Tomio Okamura (SPD), Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. The text is an abridged version of a series of posts on the TeachVision blog in which the Dean discusses the topic in greater detail.