National Institute for Education

• The National Institute for education is responsible for creating the framework educational programs, while also helping schools with creating their own educational programs and implementing them into their curriculum.
• We not only focus on initial training in schools, but also work on programs of continuing (lifelong) education for adults.
• We emphasize innovative methods of teaching, an individual approach to each student and a general modernization of schools.
• We work in the sphere of certifying qualifications and the issues of their acceptance not only in the CR, but also within an all-European context.
• The communication among the creators of the educational programs, social partners, school deputies and other important institutions is supported by the sectoral project called Field Groups, functioning under the auspices of the MoE.
• We also focus on the situation of  those students which are in some manner disadvantaged. We strive to facilitate equal access to education and to support the necessary means for guidance and counselling.
• The National Institute of Education monitors the graduates' development on the job market, their level of unemployment, whether they work within their field of expertise, what motivates them towards furthering their qualification, and how successful they are in tertiary education. It also monitors the employers' expectations regarding the graduates' abilities, along with the curriculum which might better their position on the job market.
• We offer both general and comprehensive information about schools and offered fields of education to both the educational staff and the general public.
• We also monitor the quality of the offered education and of the graduates, for instance by implementing a new final examination for students of vocational training fields. We also strive to raise the students' level of literacy.
• The National Institute of Education also focuses on pedagogical-psychological, educational and career guidance and counselling, as well as on initial prevention of risk-prone behaviour, while constantly working to raise the quality of these services. We monitor the conditions for qualification and other competencies of school workers and school guidance services and, based on these findings, we foster the creation of programs for the Continuing Training of Educational Staff. 
• Our organization cares for a number of projects supported by the European Social Fund. Thanks to the help of the European Union, it is quickly becoming possible to modernize the Czech educational system.

The NIE was founded on July 1^st, 2011 by merging the National Institute of Technical and Vocational Education (NUOV), the Research Institute of Education (VUP), and the Czech Institute for  Educational-Psychological Guidance (IPPP CR). Its history thus stretches back to  the year 1945, when the Comenius Research Institute of Education was founded in Prague. It was in 1950 when the basis for the later National Institute of Technical and Vocational Education was established in the founding of the Informational and Educational Centre for Economic Curricula in Vocational and Technical Schools. Its objective was to support educational initiatives at vocational and technical schools focused mostly on economics, but on other fields as well. The youngest of these initially separate institutions is the Czech Institute for  Educational-Psychological Guidance which commenced its activities in 1994. As of October 1^st, 2014, the National Youth Information Centre (NICM) has also become part of the NIE.