Abstract
Education, including media courses, should be available "not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike, boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets," Czech education reformer Jan Ámos Komenský wrote in the early 17th century (Great Didactica, 1907). This sentence, stressing inclusivity, partly sums up the contribution of this visionairy to the media literacy development both in Czech lands and the world.
Komenský (internationally known as Comenius) started up the swift development of media education in the Czech lands, which lasted until the first half of the 20th century. However, with WWII and the communist party's rule (1948-1989), the process was interrupted.
This paper introduces the history of media education in the Czech Republic, its current status and future prospectives.