UWB expands its study offer, adding environmental engineering, psychology and physiotherapy

The University of West Bohemia in Pilsen is opening and preparing new study programmes. Alongside the new Environmental Engineering and Technologies, it is planning on Psychology and follow-up Physiotherapy studies. The expansion responds to demand from applicants and companies in the Czech market.

Engineering also for graduates of non-technical high schools

Applicants can now submit applications for the new bachelor’s programme Environmental Engineering and Technologies, launched by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FST). The faculty is responding to growing pressure to reduce the environmental impacts of industrial production and to a shortage of specialists in this field. “The bachelor’s programme will combine technical and natural-science education with a strong focus on sustainable technologies – renewable energy sources, low-carbon solutions, waste and materials management, and the principles of the circular economy,” said programme coordinator Tomáš Broum. “With this modern alternative to traditional mechanical engineering, we are primarily targeting graduates of general secondary schools,” he added.

A key feature of the programme will be close cooperation with industrial partners and a compulsory year-long practical project, which replaces the bachelor’s thesis and may be carried out directly within companies. In its first year, the university expects to admit 30–40 students, with capacity eventually rising to around 100.

For FST's bachelor graduates, the faculty is also preparing a new follow-up master’s programme, Energy Machinery and Equipment for Nuclear and Sustainable Energy, designed to prepare future engineers for the design of modern, efficient, safe and environmentally friendly energy technologies.

New accreditations to come

The Faculty of Health Care Studies at UWB (FZS) has applied for accreditation of a new and much-requested follow-up master’s programme in physiotherapy. Students can already complete a three-year bachelor’s programme at UWB, which consistently attracts the highest number of applicants at the faculty. Expanding the study offer to include the possibility of earning a master’s degree in Applied Physiotherapy in Pilsen will broaden graduates’ opportunities for both professional and career development.

The Faculty of Education at UWB (FPE) plans to submit an application for accreditation of a bachelor’s programme in Psychology later this spring. The programme will be based on European standards for the certification of psychologists. Although graduates of the three-year programme will not be qualified to practise as psychologists, they will find employment opportunities, for example, in social services, education, public administration and the private sector. “We are trying to respond to a truly critical situation in the Pilsen Region, where more than 6,300 pupils fall under a single full-time school psychologist. Unfortunately, this is by far the highest figure in the Czech Republic,” said Dean Pavel Mentlík. In the near future, the faculty will also begin preparing a follow-up master’s programme. Graduates of the full five-year course will then be able to work in counselling, diagnostics and psychological interventions.

A second planned innovation at the Faculty of Education is a doctoral programme in Didactics of Natural Sciences. The programme aims to integrate the teaching of biology, computer science, geography, physics and mathematics, and to strengthen the training of specialists who will focus on both research and the development of teaching in these fields.