At the beginning of the school year, discussion on the use of mobile phones at schools has again become a topical issue. Most Czech children receive their first phone when they enter first grade. What is the situation regarding the use of mobile phones in schools? Should schools motivate teachers to actively use mobile phones and the internet in the classroom? Or do mobile phones disrupt and prevent learning at school? At the end of August, T-Mobile conducted a survey on this topic among parents and teachers and the results were somewhat surprising. While most parents were clearly in favour of tougher restrictions on the use of mobile phones at school, the position of teachers is not so clearly strict – at least a third of the teachers participating in the survey said that they actively use mobile internet in their teaching.

A white paper for a new Code of Justice brings far-reaching changes to many procedural institutions. For many of them, these changes would mean progress, but is this true also for the intended new rules governing the appeal on a point of law?

Nominal wages grew by 8.6% year-on-year in 2Q18. This strong figure was driven both by public sector wage growth of 11% and accelerating private-sector wage growth of 8.0 % YoY. This favourable trend increases the chance of an end-of-September rate hike, in our view.

The August manufacturing PMI declined slightly to 54.9, hitting the lowest level in a year. But we are not too worried as the PMI remains solidly above the key 50-level signalling growth and summer-months are usually more volatile anyway.