Abstract:

In the Czech Republic, legislative changes took place in 2016 in order to support inclusive education. These changes also aimed at strengthening the role of assistant teachers in educational process. The analyses carried out by the authors suggested the need for a broader examination of the relationships between the teacher and assistant teacher in primary school.

The objective of the paper is thus to present the results of a questionnaire survey, the objective of which was to analyse the specifics of the relationship between the teacher and assistant teacher in primary school in the Czech Republic.

The overall number of respondents was 991 across schools in the Czech Republic. Responses were obtained from 634 (male/female: 70/564) teachers and 357 (male/female: 8/349) assistant teachers. The data collection was carried out in 01–10/2018. The selection of respondents was conducted by means of deliberate exhaustive sampling.

The results suggest that there is a need for effective and high-quality communication, not only between teachers and assistant teachers, but also other employees such as educational counsellors, school psychologists, and special education teachers. The research also shows that both teachers and assistant teachers are overwhelmed by administration, which according to their responses makes education more complicated.

Keywords:

Teacher, assistant teacher, joint education, communication, inclusion.