Context and consequences of educational expansion : Transformation of the Czech education system, level of education, social inequality, literacy and employability of graduates
Abstract
Chapter deals with the dynamic development of the Czech school system in the last 20 years. It attempts to explain and evaluate - on the basis of the analysis of data about the graduates of schools from the OECD projects SIALS (1998) and PIAAC (2012) - the social connections of the expansion of the educational set and its impact on the changing structure of the educational opportunities, regarding the persisting social inequality as to the access to higher education, the development of results of education, and the worsening degree of employment of the graduates on the job market.
The structure of education of graduates - in the sense of a significant increase of the share of university graduates and a decrease of the graduates of vocational schools - has fundamentally changed in the past 14 years. The overall average length of education is almost 3 years longer now.
Inequalities in the approach to higher education, however, did not decrease during the expansion. The overall literacy of the graduates has not changed very much either.
What decreased significantly, in contrast, was the literacy of individual degrees of education. The significant prolongation of the total length of education and distribution of a greater number of diplomas, however, did not lead to an increase of literacy among young people.
What influences the literacy more is the social origin of the graduates. Another consequence of the school expansion is the worsening of opportunities for employment of the graduates of higher degrees of schools on the job market.
To be successful on the job market is therefore more influenced by the social origin of the graduate than by his or her education.