Czech Tech Universities See Huge Demand From Expat Students

An increasing number of young expats are heading to Czech universities.

New data from the Czech Republic’s Ministry of the Interior has revealed an increasing number of young expats are heading for the country’s universities. Over the past 15 years, the numbers of foreign students arriving to study for their degrees has increased three-fold, with expats now comprising an average of 15 per cent of all university students in the country. Popular universities are now reporting 25 per cent of their student body are arriving from overseas.

At the present time, some 85,000 students from overseas are studying in Czech educational institutes ranging from grade school up to university and college level. One reason for the increase is believed to be the rise of cross-border cooperation between universities and secondary schools, and increasing youth mobility within the European Union as well as the Erasmus university education programme have made it far easier for overseas students to study in the Republic. A high proportion of expat students are studying for Masters’ degrees and other full-time doctoral programmes.

Favourites are medicine and pharmaceutics, with one in every four students in these speciality fields arriving from overseas. Although none of the republic’s universities were listed in the world’s top 50, according to the widely respected QS survey, a good number feature in the 1,000 best global universities rankings. Recommended are Charles University, founded in the 14th century, Prague’s Czech Technical University and University of Chemistry and Technology as well as Brno’s University of Technology and Masaryk University. Clearly, the accent is on tech studies, especially as the Republic is now a hub for expat IT start-ups and tech-based expat professionals from across the world. Worryingly, it’s not yet known how Brexit will affect British students studying in Czech education institutes.