Czech children do not like going to school. Their sense of satisfaction is affected by unsatisfactory relationships with their peers and low degrees of support from their teachers. The demands of the school environment and the associated stress are also reflected in their attitudes. This is based on the latest findings by the Palacký University Olomouc team collaborating on the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study. The latest report also examines other aspects of children’s lifestyles, including the link between school satisfaction and social network use.
Only 9% of Czech children and teenagers actually look forward to school. This puts the Czech Republic among the countries where children least look forward to school compared to Europe and the world. Nearly 4 out of 10 children do not enjoy going to school very much… or not at all. The proportion of schoolchildren who dislike school increases significantly with age. More than a quarter (28%) of 11-year-olds do not enjoy school, while for 15-year-olds it is almost half (46%).
“The findings of the HBSC study highlight critical areas where we need to focus our efforts to improve the health and well-being of Czech children. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is committed to working with Czech authorities and institutions to implement measures that will improve peer/teacher relationships and reduce school-related stress, ultimately strengthening the mental and physical health of our youth,” said Zsofia Pusztai, WHO Representative in the Czech Republic.
The international HBSC study also tracks long-term trends. At the beginning of the millennium, the popularity of school was rather on the rise. However, over the last 10–15 years, children’s attitudes towards school have been deteriorating, regardless of gender and age.
Children who are very excited about school. Comparison between 2010 and the last survey from 2022 | |
11 y.o. | 21% → 12% |
13 y.o. | 16% → 7% |
15 y.o. | 16% → 8% |
“The deteriorating relationship with school is not a new phenomenon. We do not take the long-term trend lightly and, together with experts, we are asking ourselves what to look for behind the negative evaluation of the school environment and, above all, how to reverse the trend,” says Michal Kalman, Olomouc University Social Health Institute (OUSHI) at the Sts Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology at UP, head of the study’s research team.
Relationships with peers, teachers, and stress
What is behind the low evaluation of the school environment? The Olomouc researchers focused on the three arguably most important links – relationships with peers, relationships with teachers, and school stress.
Less than half of 11- to 15-year-olds think that their classmates like being together and that they are nice and ready to help. Only 37% of boys, and only 30% of girls, think that they have high degrees of “student support” (i.e. peer support, an indicator used in the international HBSC study to assess classroom climate). This finding is even more pessimistic when compared to other countries – Czech schoolchildren perceive relationships with their classmates as the worst of all 45 countries where the HBSC study surveyed the situation.
Only half of 5th–9th graders in the Czech Republic (52%) say they trust their teachers. Only two out of five (40%) feel that teachers care about their pupils. The perceived degree of support from teachers decreases significantly with increasing age. Between the ages of 11, 13, and 15, it drops from 50% → 35% → 30% among boys, and even more steeply 51% → 26% → 22% among girls. The low relationship scores are also reflected in the European context: the Czech 43rd position out of 45 countries surveyed in the HBSC study is alarming.
I had to learn things that I do not understand (2022)
27.3% / 46.7%
13 y.o.
24.4% / 47.2%
15 y.o.
However, this is no longer the case in terms of the stress from studying – the perceived pressure to perform school duties follows the European average. Thirty-eight percent of boys and more than half (52%) of girls report higher stress from schoolwork. Schoolchildren start to perceive stress more strongly between years 11 and 13, i.e. between the 5th and 7th grades of primary school (boys 29% → 44% and girls 34% → 62%).
“A safe, open, and positive school environment is an essential condition for quality and effective teaching and for the development of each pupil’s potential. Mutual and reciprocal respect between pupils, teachers, and parents creates a space for unified educational impact on the pupil. Every individual is different, so tolerance of different levels of aptitude in different areas as well as tolerance of different opinions is critical. International studies have long shown that the school climate is a weak point in the Czech educational system,” emphasises Karel Kovář, Deputy Chief School Inspector of the Czech School Inspectorate.
School, lifestyle, and the (online) world
The popularity of school is also related to other aspects of lifestyle. Among schoolchildren who do not like going to school or feel under a lot of pressure from school duties, there is a significantly higher risk (2–4 times) of headaches, depressive states, irritability, and nervousness. Those with problematic social media use feel particularly unwell at school. Compared to their peers who are in control of their “online life”, they are more likely to experience the pressure of schoolwork and to have negative feelings about their relationships with classmates and teachers.
The HBSC epidemiological study looks at a wide range of lifestyle aspects of children and teenagers aged 11–15 in the Czech Republic and nearly 50 other countries worldwide. It is being developed in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO). The research team from Palacký University Olomouc has been studying factors affecting the health of Czech schoolchildren aged 11, 13, and 15 for a long time. In the current research, data was collected from nearly 15,000 children in 250 schools of different types across the Czech Republic. The extensive research among Czech schoolchildren was supported by the EU under the Johannes Amos Comenius Operational Programme – Top Research.
Further details and materials for downloading
- Report on the current research on the Healthy Generation project website.
- Recommendations and activities for teaching on the Healthy Generation Academy website.
- Why I’m not looking forward to school (info poster to download)
- I love school (info poster to download)
- Schools that pupils look forward to (Czech School Inspectorate’s analytical and methodological material on promoting wellbeing in schools)