Education Reform? Absolutely! But from the Top Down or the Bottom Up?

Film Screening

Eduzměna poprvé (Eduzměna: The First Steps)

film, 35 min

How can schools and the people in them change when they are given support and room to find their own way? The documentary Eduzměna: The First Steps tells the story of five schools in the Kutná Hora region that took part in a unique pilot project run by the Eduzměna Endowment Fund.

The film’s director, Viliam Vala, spoke with school principals, teachers, parents, and children, asking about their experiences and capturing changes in teaching, relationships, and ideas about what school is for. The film also candidly portrays the doubts, initial mistrust, dead ends, and disappointed expectations that have accompanied this attempt to set systemic changes in Czech education in motion.

Eduzměna: The First Steps is not just a documentary about five years of an ambitious experiment; above all, it is about people who decided to think differently about school. It does not ask whether they have reached the finish line. Instead, it follows with curiosity what happens when they set out on their journey.

Panel Discussion

Few people disagree that Czech education needs to change, and many experts agree on the direction it should take. But who should make that change: the state, or schools, municipalities, and nonprofit organizations? What can be changed from the top down, and what has to emerge from the bottom up? Can the two approaches be connected so that change actually reaches schools?

Speakers: Dana Pražáková, Zdeněk Slejška, Jan Vöröš Mušuta

Moderated by: Tomáš Feřtek

The program was created in cooperation with the Eduzměna Endowment Fund.