The Czech Republic has an educated workforce, but the lack of technically educated people has been posing an obstacle to further development of the country. Is the Czech Republic suffocating what has been seen as a major competitive advantage?

The world needs more people with IT degrees. Yet, in the latest period for which Eurostat has sufficient data (2013-2015), the number of university students pursuing IT-related degrees has declined in 15 of the 28 member countries. The Czech Republic is among those 15.  Aside from Greece, in fact, the country had the highest nominal decline (-5225) among member countries. And, yes, only 5 countries had a lower percentage of female IT students than us (17%). Notably, two other counties with significant decline in IT university students were Hungary (-3247) and Poland (-3995). Germany (+22,398), Romania (+26,367) and the UK (+5,462) were the main countries contributing to the EU's 3,089 overall student increase.

Some facts and opinions about the current situation and the future outlook follow.

Author: AmCham CZ, kb