Strana 37
POSITIV 1/2018 | 37
The word “investment” may be understood as a synonym
”for future”. I could list sixteen projecta worth 300 mil-
lion CZK aimed at energy–saving measures in schools
which have just begun, but these are operation and
maintenance investments that would have to be made
sooner or later anyway. What I am much happier to
speak about is the investments in modern technolo-
gies and equipment which help to efficiently educate
and train students for the future. Investments in mod-
ern technologies make students better informed, more
skilled and, as a bonus, more prepared for their profes-
sional careers.
In the long-term prospective, the Moravian-Silesian
region has invested much in education. In the past
program period of 2007–2015, the region spent nearly
500 million CZK on the modernization of teaching and
support of schools, two–thirds of which were invested
in support of technical and IT education, i.e. the fields
of growing importance in the near future. These invest-
ments are being developed with another investment of
240 million CZK; a considerable part of which is going
to be spent on progressive spheres of mechatronics and
automation, both closely connected to Industry 4.0.
Connecting Theory and Practice
We are renewing schools to open specialized class-
rooms with collaborative robots, virtual reality labs
with 3D visualization to illustrate subject matter
and make education more attractive, especially in
machine engineering and automotive fields of study.
We are also concentrating on the support of profes-
sional training in CNC machining, and the moderniza-
tion of welding instruction through modern methods
using welding simulators, often using virtual reality
which makes instruction more efficient and saves
running costs (including costs of material and energies).
Other spheres to get significant investments are
the actual facilities where the practical instruction
of students takes place: some school workshops
are so dated in their equipment and design that the
schools need to construct new workshops rather
than inefficient renovations to make them meet the
demands of the 21st century. A positive example is
the construction of new workshops at the Secondary
Professional School in Bruntál (worth 50 million CZK)
or the planned construction at Secondary Profes-
sional School in Frýdek-Místek (intended budget
app. 200 million CZK). This year we have started the
renewal of the agricultural school in Opava which is
unfortunately limited by the regional budgeting as the
total costs total up to 200 million CZK due to training
cattle and pig stalls, and the general modernization of
the farm. The key problem when investing large sums
is that the implementation of financial resources from
EU funds is not possible.
We shall continue investing in progressive techno-
logies and school equipment. It is obvious that these
investments will pay off in the savings of operational
costs (in the case of investments spent on buildings
and constructions) and even more in the future thanks
to young generations being well prepared for life and
work in the modern world.