Abstract
Czech education system exhibits early tracking and educational inequalities that are higher that those in most developed countries. The most controversial element of the system discussed in this context is multi-year grammar schools that are attended by students after the completion of primary school.
The paper seeks answer to the question what factors influence student aspirations to study at multi-year grammar school and what factors are crucial for success at entrance examinations. Analyses are carried out on data from the international comparative study TIMSS and PIRLS that was carried out in 2011 and on data collected in a survey of 5-graders implemented on the same sample in 2012 within the Czech Longitudinal Study of Education (CLoSE).
The questions are answered by binary logistic regression and by descriptive analyses of the data gained in the CLoSE project. The analyses show that though the most important factor influencing the success in entrance examinations is student performance, student home background has also a very important impact on both aspirations and the success at entrance procedures.