From Working With Talent to Tasty Lunches Ostrava Supports Education in all its Breadth
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EDUCATION
“Talent management” – I don’t hear this
term very often.
You couldn’t, because Ostrava is currently
the only Czech city that has been working
with school-age talent in a long-term, and
systematically. As I mentioned earlier, we are
fully aware that our greatest capital for
the future lies in people. We are a country
without any fairy-tale mineral wealth,
so our prosperity can only be secured
through education and qualification.
That is precisely what talent management
is about – identifying children’s talent at the
earliest possible age, being able to develop
it, and setting the right conditions for it to
grow.
In addition to the Talent City conference,
intended for both experts and the
wider public, we organise a wide range
of workshops, support themed clubs,
provide scholarships, educate teachers
and also inform parents. Our strongest
influence is naturally at the level of nursery
and primary schools, which are mostly run
by the city’s districts, but our scope goes
even further. For example, we have been
supporting exceptionally gifted university
students for thirty years. Over the past five
years, this support has taken the form of the
Talent of the Year award, whose recipients
also receive a financial gift of CZK 50,000.
Talent is certainly important, but it still
needs to be guided towards real-world use
I absolutely agree. That is precisely why
we establish and maintain the positions
of career counsellors in schools. This is the
very project awarded at the European level,
which I mentioned in the first question. Well-
trained career counsellors can guide pupils
and students in planning their own future
and, when needed, connect them with local
employers. We also involve employment-
policy experts in the entire process.
However, I would like to stress that career
counsellors are far from the only specialist
positions the city supports in schools.
Thanks to our contribution, 25 primary
schools now also have guidance counsellors,
special-education teachers, psychologists,
social educators or teaching assistants.
Their contribution to the educational
process is indisputable and backed by solid
data. It would be highly beneficial if these
specialist positions were sufficiently funded
from the state budget.
In the past two years alone, Ostrava’s city
authority has invested more than CZK
15 million to secure and maintain these
specialist roles. Although it is a certain
financial burden, we will continue to bear
it for as long as possible to uphold our goal
of accessible – that is, inclusive – education.
Today we know – and I emphasise know,
not merely assume – that thanks to these
specialist staff, for example, the school
success rate of children from so-called
socially excluded backgrounds improves
significantly, while the number of their early
departures from education drops markedly.
In recent years, we have been hearing
increasingly frequent concerns about
children’s declining physical skills
and decreasing interest in sport. Can
schools help to improve this situation?
They can – if not must. In Ostrava, we have
been addressing this issue intensively. One
example is the success of our Movement
(R)evolution project, which I mentioned
earlier. You cannot force anyone to do
sport; children simply have to enjoy physical
activity. This is the principle behind our
efforts.
The flagship of the city’s sports projects
is the Ostrava Sports Games. In cooperation
with the Association of Sports Clubs of the
Czech Republic, we are currently preparing
their 6th edition. I am very pleased that
the popularity of this event is still growing
among schools. Last year, more than 6,500
children from 58 primary schools and multi-
year grammar schools took part.
The Games consist partly of various
challenges in which participants can earn
points for engaging in physical activities.
The second part comprises city-level rounds
in selected team sports, giving children not
only the joy of sport but also a taste of healthy
competition. The Games culminate in a final
sports day, during which pupils can try not
only the “usual” sports they already know
well, but also less common disciplines – such
as fencing, archery, climbing on a training
wall, judo and others.
Sport is a joy – and that is exactly what every
participant of the Ostrava Sports Games
should take away from the event.
After sport comes an appetite. I’ve heard
that school children in Ostrava are now
enjoying their school lunches.
I understand what you’re hinting at. Yes,
since 2019 we have been running the city
project Fajne školní bistro, which provides
mentoring for school catering in our nursery
and primary school canteens. From the very
beginning, the project’s mentor was
the renowned chef David Valíček, a man
with an extensive international experience.
Later, other masters of their craft joined him
– Petr Bláha and Michal Adam. Nutrition
specialists Michaela Remešová and Dagmar
Kovářů have also taken part.
The result is school canteens that cook tasty,
healthy, nutritious and properly balanced
meals. In the eyes of children, their chefs
are successfully rehabilitating dishes that
used to be notoriously disliked – legumes,
fish, bread pudding and other meals
my generation doesn’t exactly remember
fondly from school.
We have compiled the experience gained
from mentoring and workshops into
the Digital Cookbook of Fajne školní bistro.
It has been well received in schools, so we
are now preparing its second volume.
Everything we’ve talked about costs
money — and certainly not a small
amount.
Of course. Together with the district
authorities, the statutory city of Ostrava
invests over one billion crowns a year
in education, and this level of support
continues to grow. I emphasise the word
invests, because money spent on schooling
and education brings an excellent return
and comes back to all of us as a society. This
is how we must view funding in these areas
— as an investment with a broad social yield.
And if we agree that we want high-quality
education for as many children as possible,
we inevitably return to the old saying of our
late ancestors, who understood long before
us that “quality comes at a price”. That
applies everywhere — and education is no
exception.
Thank you for the interview.
It’s not about isolated projects;
we’re striving for a high-quality,
inspiring and accessible
educaon system as a whole.
That’s what talent management
is about – idenfying talent
early, developing it, and creang
the right condions for it to grow.