Who's filling Czech engineering lecture halls? Increasingly, students from abroad

“The situation is really quite sad,” recently warned Rostislav Drochytka, the former dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Czech Technical University.

It’s been a long-term trend, but the latest official figures point to a dire situation: the number of students in technical fields has fallen drastically in the Czech Republic, and the situation may only get worse as demographic trends go down.

Twenty years ago, there was approximately 60,000 students enrolled in Czech public or private universities in the fields of technology, manufacturing and construction – or more than 20 percent of the student body.

Although there are now more students than there used to be, less than 40,000 are now studying in those fields – just about 12 percent of the total.

Companies caution of growing shortages of qualified and skilled workers as a result of the drop – especially in the engineering, automotive, electrical engineering and construction sectors – and warn that this may have a general negative impact on innovation, investment opportunities and production capacities in Czechia.

“Unfortunately, there is a societal stigma about technical fields, that they are unattractive,” explained Tomáš Hamberger, the commissioner for technical skills and education.

“The current government’s priority is to return technical education to primary schools as a mandatory subject, which is one of the most systematic steps we can take.”

In the meantime, a growing share of those who do study in technology, manufacturing and construction are now coming from abroad: about 7,000 out of 40,000, mainly Slovaks, Ukrainians, Russians, Kazakhs and Indians, according to the Czech statistical office.

There are about 330,000 students enrolled in public or private universities in Czechia today. This number has been increasing in recent years but remains far from the peak of the early 2010s, when Czechia had about 400,000 students.

There’s consistently been more women than men in Czech universities, with the current gender ratio at about 55-45.

Overall, the most popular fields are Business, Administration and Law (67,000 students), followed by Health and Social Services (45,000), Technology, Manufacturing and Construction (40,000) and Education and Training (40,000).

Several fields have seen interest increase in recent years, including science, mathematics and statistics, information and communication technologies, and health and social care.

Interestingly, the number of Czech students enrolled in Czech universities is now virtually the same as it was 20 years ago, about 270,000.

The number of foreign students, meanwhile, tripled to reach 60,000 today – nearly a fifth of the total. Put together, Slovaks and Ukrainians make up more than half of those.

And last little tidbit of information: the most common place of residence for students in Czechia is, well, not in Czechia, with over 50,000 officially based abroad.

That’s more than those who officially reside in Prague (40,000), Central Bohemia (38,000), Moravia-Silesia (32,000) or any other Czech region.