Cooperation

In science and research, it would not be possible to achieve the results we accumulated without the mutual cooperation of specialists and departments in the Czech Republic and abroad. In 2009-2011, these were especially the departments from the following countries: Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Spain, Austria, Ukraine, Federal Republic of Germany, Hungary, Great Britain, Lithuania, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Italy, U.S.A., China, Egypt and Australia.

The faculty offers three study programmes that can be studied in a foreign language. These are Education, Special Education and Music Theory and Education. We find this provision as a significant facility in terms of furthering international cooperation. In this respect, the faculty also effectively used the support of the development programmes of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in terms of financial support of e.g. studies for students of Special Education programme from People’s Republic of China, i.e. a country, undergoing cultural and political transformation. Funds were also utilised to intensify linguistic competencies of the academic and administrative staff, who directly participate in implementing these programmes. The programme implementation also reciprocally and secondarily strengthens specialised linguistic competencies of studies as well as their teachers, and ultimately also the students in other than Doctoral study programmes at the Faculty of Education UP, as foreign students participate in teaching and they are involved in all activities of the department, seminars, conferences, etc.

The Faculty of Education UP managed to expand cooperation with foreign countries, new contacts with many foreign universities and other institutions are being established and the areas of cooperation include the staff and students’ international mobility and also scientific and research activities and education and clinical internships. Programmes such as Erasmus or Development Programmes of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports were utilised here, as well as programmes such as Leonardo, Comenius and others. Departments and institutes are now also involved in international cooperation by organizing international scientific and professional conferences, participated by important specialists from abroad, which serve in promoting and establishing closer contacts aimed at furthering the efforts in scientific and pedagogical work (e.g. from U.S.A., Great Britain, Italy, Russia, Poland, Spain, Sweden and Belgium). There was also a significant and noticeable effort towards transformation through the acquisition of scientific literature and journals from grant sources of the faculty or from external resources, which is a direct reaction to the reduction in funds for universities in the past years, and apart from emphasis on utilising available electronic databases arranged by UP, it aims towards better efficiency in utilising funds to cover primarily serial publications usable for implementing findings in teaching or for scientific and research purposes. Many students and staff participated in international mobility under the financial support of development projects or from the Erasmus programme. We can state that in 2009, we managed to expand cooperation and establish new contacts with universities abroad, although the interest in visits abroad is still not quite on the appropriate level on the part of the students, or they do not fulfil the admission proceedings criteria set by the selection committee, including language requirements.

In 2010, there was an increase in the number of foreign students (103 students) in individual study programmes by 1/3 in comparison to the previous year. Apart from students from the Slovak Republic, there were or still are also students from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Poland, U.S.A. and other countries. Close cooperation with the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Embassy and Sichuan Normal University Chengdu, which is in the long-term based on research work of students in the Doctoral programme Special Education, and currently also on scientific and research cooperation on the level of the faculty’s academic personnel, resulted in further concurrence. In 2010, three more students commenced their studies of the English programme of Special Education, and thus followed up on the success of two graduates from this programme of study, who concluded their studies in June 2010 and acquired the PhD degree. In cooperation with the Faculty of Education UP, they are currently working on developing Master’s programmes in special education in China and promoting PhD studies at our faculty.

The faculty finds it significant that two students from the People’s Republic of China managed to successfully complete the Doctoral study programme and graduate in the field of Special Education at the Institute of Special Education Studies, and their success was further followed by three new students from the same non-European country, who were accepted for the four-year form of study in the same field for the period 2010-2014.