Why you may want to go to a private university in the Czech Republic

Tatiana Doroshuk, a chief officer at the GoStudy educational centre, talks about the benefits of studying at private universities in the Czech Republic.

Based on my experience of talking to students and their parents, I can say that many of them treat private higher education providers with caution, even prejudice. We review Czech higher education provider ratings every year and we can clearly see that private universities rank high. We follow our students’ careers. I am sure that those students, who graduated from private universities, were satisfied with the education they received. Most importantly, graduates from the private universities are in demand in the job market.

Of course, many of our students decide to go to a private university simply because applicants are enrolled without exams. Besides, a candidate must have a good knowledge of the Czech language in order to study at a public university, while at private universities, you don’t need to have to be fluent in Czech at the beginning of your study.

I always try to explain to our students, that despite the fact that virtually anybody can enrol on a course at a private university, it doesn’t mean there will be low requirements towards them. Private universities have to compete, so the quality of training is a matter of principle for them. There is this myth that private higher education providers don’t expel their students. That’s not true as private universities are concerned with high ratings, so they want to have successful students.

SKODA AUTO University in Mlada-Boleslav

In fact, we cannot effectively compare the quality of training at private and public universities as both of them have their own specifics.

Public universities provide classical education. We recommend to our students, who want to study medicine, natural sciences, philosophy and other humanities, to apply to public universities. Private higher education institutions, in turn, take cross-disciplinary approach in training, and theory and practice in such universities are better related.

Private universities have connections with big business and experts who have hands-on experience in business. Each student undertakes a 6-month traineeship at a company. Graduates from Czech private universities with a degree in economics have better hands-on experience than graduates from public universities. That is why a private university graduate has better chances to get hired.

This observation is supported by last year’s research done by the school of education at Charles University. In 2012, the percentage of unemployed graduates from private universities was 3.2%. (One of the GoStudy partners, Business School in Ostrava (VŠP) has even lower index of 3%.) At the same time, 4% of graduates from public universities remained unemployed.

The statistics support the fact that private higher education providers are proactive in seeking employment for their graduates.

Also, I’d like to add that private universities respond very quickly to the market demands and develop new training programs on an ongoing basis. Another apparent advantage of private universities is that they have individual approach to all of their students.

By the way, private higher education providers may financially support their students. This includes social and accommodation allowances and academic excellence scholarship. Additionally, a private university may be flexible in terms of payment, offering to pay by instalments.

Many private universities in the Czech Republic have established partnerships with higher education providers all over the world. Students can study in English if they want to. For example, the University of Finance and Administration (VŠFS) offers MBA and double-degree diploma or joint-degree programs under the agreement with the University of Washington in Seattle.

I’d like to point out that 70% of the VŠFS faculty staff also give lectures at a leading economics university in the country, the Prague University of Economics and Business.

As for tuition fees at Czech universities, they are quite low (ranging from EUR 1,000 to 3,000 per academic year) and can be paid by instalments.
Students applying to Czech private universities can enrol in a special training program with GoStudy. We explain that not all private higher education providers in the Czech Republic are the same. GoStudy only partners with accredited universities, and our students select universities with sound training programs only.