The new electronic system of applications for secondary schools in the Czech Republic failed to launch at midnight last night as planned, due to a “programming error” detected in the final testing, according to Miroslav Krejčí, director of developer Cermat. Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) said before boarding a flight to Brussels this morning that the system’s failure should not affect the admission procedure.
“I am not happy about this, but it should not affect the course of the admissions process,” he said, adding that the matter is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, and the system should be launched as soon as possible after the guarantees are verified.
The online system was due to open for applicants today for the first time, but encountered problems with uploading attachments, and the system will now launch later, probably on Friday, Krejci told CTK.
Education Minister Mikulas Bek (STAN) apologised for the complications and asked parents and students to be patient. “The security of the data and the entire system takes priority over meeting the launch date,” he wrote this morning on Twitter (styled as ‘X’).
Parents of prospective students can send the applications until 20 February, even in paper form.
The problem with the launch of the electronic application system is a fundamental error, said MP Pavel Klima (TOP 09) who heads the lower house education committee. “I understand that they only discovered the error on Wednesday evening. But that doesn’t excuse them, the whole system should have been tested,” Klima said, adding that Minister Bek is responsible for it.
The electronic application system is linked to the basic registers. Therefore, due to the expected influx of users, the Digital and Information Agency has strengthened the Citizen Identity system, through which people will apply to the system, by 45%. The agency took the measure because of recent problems logging into the new eDocuments application.
Deputy Prime Minister for digitization Ivan Bartos (Pirates) wrote on Twitter that the Digital and Information Agency offered the Ministry of Education above-standard assistance in the morning. “It is not about finding people to blame, but about making the system accessible to applicants. We expect that tomorrow,” he said.
