Religious education

Religious communities which acquired “the special right to teach religion at public schools” according to Act on Churches and Religious Societies No. 3/2002 have the right to organise religious classes as a non compulsory subject in all public schools. They can organise classes in a particular school alone, or unite to provide common classes. The class must be open if there are at least seven pupils attending a school applying (meaning that their parents have applied for them).
Teachers need to be authorised by the relevant religious community but the school is their employer and pays their salary. All pupils may attend religious education classes, even if they are not members of the organising religious community. Religious communities support this practice because of ecumenical cooperation and common need.
The Church schools and private schools have an absolutely free choice to provide compulsory or voluntary religious education or to exclude it from their curricula entirely.

For further information, see the article "Religion in public education in Czech Republic" of Jiří Rajmund Tretera and Záboj Horák in Gerhard Robbers (Hrsg.), Religion in Public Education – La religion dans l’éducation publique, European Consortium for Church and State Research, Trier, 2011, 99-112.