scholarly journals The new culture of learning in a changing world in the Czech Republic and other countries of Eastern Europe

Author(s):  
Oksana I. Dolgaya

The rapidly changing world, the increasing competition in the labor market, the widespread introduction of digital technologies set new challenges for education. In the Czech Republic, as in other Eastern European countries, which simultaneously entered the European Union and are developing in line with general trends, research educators are considering a new learning culture that is in line with the knowledge society and aimed at active, constructive, independent, motivated and holistic learning. As the principles and features of the new learning culture, they single out the construction of educational material based on constructivist theories of learning, the creation of a new active learning environment, the changing role of the teacher and student, the use of teaching methods that are consistent with its new tasks and goals.

2002 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-122
Author(s):  
F. Festoc-Louis

In 1998, the European Union (EU) entered into negotiations with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia concerning the enlargement of the Union. At the end of 1999, the European Commission decided that six other countries could join the negotiations in 2000 (Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Malta and Romania), and it was suggested that a decision concerning the date of membership would be taken in 2002 for these applicants fulfilling all the criteria. Many questions still remain on both sides, in particular regarding institutional reform of the EU (Festoc, 1998), and the ability of the Central and Eastern European countries to adopt the “acquis”. In this article, we shall evaluate the ways in which the Central European countries (Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — the CECs) have already integrated to the Western European economy, using trade data over the last ten years. First, we show that since the beginning of the transition, a feature of the foreign trade of the CECs has been a strong reorientation from East to West, in particular to Germany, together with a rapid growth in trade between the EU and the CECs. Second, we describe the trade structure, focussed on foreign direct investment as a mean of developing new exports. The third and fourth sections study the development of the specialisations of the CECs and the nature of trade between the CECs and the EU respectively.


2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Brusis

Numerous Central and Eastern European countries have restructured their regional level of public administration in the context of their accession to the European Union. Focusing on the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the article studies how the EU has influenced the institutionalization of regions and regional self-government. Regionalization may have been driven mainly by EU conditionality or, as a competing explanation suggests, more by domestic factors. The article argues that the EU altered the opportunity structure faced by domestic actors but that its role was more complementary than decisive. Czech and Slovak governments instrumentalized a perceived EU conditionality to promote their own political objectives. These findings demonstrate that a top-down concept of conditionality lends itself to fallacies and should be substantiated by reconstructing the domestic politics of Europeanization.


Author(s):  
Michal Onderco

This chapter focuses on defence transformations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary since the end of the cold war. The three lesser powers of Central Europe all eventually joined NATO and the European Union, following the fall of the Iron Curtain. The process they underwent completely transformed their security strategies and military doctrines, but the plans to transform their military forces have developed slowly, and the actual process has been interrupted and incomplete. This chapter addresses the development of civil–military relations, the main milestones in the development of the respective states’ national security policies, and the main changes in the structure of military forces in each of these countries. Finally, the chapter looks at the nascent trends towards military cooperation between the three countries, including military sharing and joint procurement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3647
Author(s):  
Peter Fiener ◽  
Tomáš Dostál ◽  
Josef Krása ◽  
Elmar Schmaltz ◽  
Peter Strauss ◽  
...  

In the European Union, soil erosion is identified as one of the main environmental threats, addressed with a variety of rules and regulations for soil and water conservation. The by far most often officially used tool to determine soil erosion is the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its regional adaptions. The aim of this study is to use three different regional USLE-based approaches in three different test catchments in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Austria to determine differences in model results and compare these with the revised USLE-base European soil erosion map. The different regional model adaptations and implementation techniques result in substantial differences in test catchment specific mean erosion (up to 75% difference). Much more pronounced differences were modelled for individual fields. The comparison of the region-specific USLE approaches with the revised USLE-base European erosion map underlines the problems and limitations of harmonization procedures. The EU map limits the range of modelled erosion and overall shows a substantially lower mean erosion compared to all region-specific approaches. In general, the results indicate that even if many EU countries use USLE technology as basis for soil conservation planning, a truly consistent method does not exist, and more efforts are needed to homogenize the different methods without losing the USLE-specific knowledge developed in the different regions over the last decades.


2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
LB ◽  
JHR

In between the writing of this editorial and the publication of this issue of EuConst, the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union, in everyday parlance the ‘Fiscal Compact’, will have been signed by the representatives of the governments of the contracting parties — the member states of the European Union minus the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. The Fiscal Compact is intended to foster budgetary discipline, to strengthen the coordination of economic policies and to improve the governance of the euro area.


Author(s):  
Sebastian Kubala ◽  
Marcin Stanuch

One of the key markets of the European Union is the poultry meat market. The situation on this market is of significant importance to both producers and consumers. The main aim of the article is to study the level of self-sufficiency of selected countries in Central and Eastern Europe in the production of poultry meat. Eleven countries were selected as the research area: Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Hungary. In the conducted research, simplified indices of self-sufficiency were used: the balance of foreign trade in terms of volume and value, average annual consumption per capita and production volume in relation to consumption. The study was conducted for the years 2009-2018. The statistical sources used come from FAOSTAT and International Trade Centre databases. Research has shown that the analyzed countries are characterized by a significant diversification of the self-sufficiency level of poultry meat production. Only 6 analyzed countries can meet the domestic consumption demand from their own production, the remaining countries supplement the deficit from imported goods. The highest level of self-sufficiency of poultry meat production was observed in Poland, Slovenia, Lithuania and Hungary. On the other hand, the lowest level is found in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovakia and Latvia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 52-71
Author(s):  
Nicole Horáková

The level of trust in politicians also in government institutions is taken as an indicator of the state of society in general. Various studies have shown that the population of the Central Eastern European countries, and especially the citizens of the Czech Republic, lack trust in state institutions and democratic structures. The trust of the Czech population in government institutions is, compared to other (Western) European countries, at a relatively low level. This article aims to discuss different factors that are currently influencing this lack of trust: the historical, cultural, and institutional. The empirical data for this article is based on the European Values Study and Czech surveys of public opinion concerning trust in government institutions.


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