Giving math back to Czechia
We all have someone in our personal history who inspired us, supported us and set us on the right path – and more often than not it’s a teacher. However, mathematics faculties aren’t producing enough new graduates and the average age of math teachers keeps rising. By providing targeted support, we want to ensure that society doesn’t lose people like that. We see education as crucial in our country – for the next generation and for our country’s competitiveness.
The system is already hundreds of math teachers short – 600 at the second level of primary schools and 300 at secondary schools.
About project
What is Math for Czechia?
We launched a pilot project aimed at supporting math teachers who meet certain criteria. We are targeting new teachers (less than 5 years’ teaching experience) who actively work with children and keep improving their knowledge and skills. For the pilot phase, we selected teachers teaching older primary and secondary schoolchildren in Prague and the Ústí and Karlovy Vary regions. At the end of the 2023/24 school year, we will evaluate the project and scale it up so that we can expand into other regions.
Vision
“We aren’t striving for systemic change because we don’t feel able to determine what that change should be. What we want, though, is a positive, measurable impact. For me, this works best where there are as few intermediaries as possible and where there’s mutual trust.”
Petr Zahradník
Our goals
Getting new teachers into the system
The ranks of recent graduates aren’t the only source of math teachers that can be recruited. That’s why we support organizations that focus on retraining and later-in-life pathways into teaching roles, such as Učitel naživo and Začni učit!
Preventing teachers leaving the profession
Through our Math for Czechia project, we provide direct financial support and assistance to teachers who might otherwise leave education, and non-financial support through involvement in platforms such as Elixír do škol, where they can share their teaching experience and gain further inspiration.
Boosting the prestige of the teaching profession
We support the new special prize for math teachers in the prestigious Global Teacher Prize. We support mathematics conferences, organizations offering mentoring for teachers, and math summer schools.