BUSINESS ACADEMY holešovice
WHO WE ARE

We are a public school (no tuition paid) with over fifty years of tradition in specialized economic education. Our school resides in a recently refurbished building right across from Nádraží Holešovice subway station and is easily accessible by transport, for Prague residents and out-of-towners alike.

SPECIALIZATIONS

We provide high-quality secondary education in the following two specializations.

BUSINESS ACADEMY
63-41-M/02 Business Academy

This specialization is diversified from the third year into five different curricula which the students can choose from, all of them with an extended foreign-language learning program, namely:

• tourism
• banking
• international trade
• marketing and management
• sports management

Business Academy graduates have no problem finding jobs in the labor market and are equally well prepared for further studies, especially at faculties of economics, law, social sciences and other humanities. They are qualified to perform administrative, consulting, organizational and analytical jobs in various types of organizations. They actively use two foreign languages in their professional communication, their PC skills are at the level of ECDL. They are familiar with current legislation. High percentage of our graduates have found jobs in banking, tourist industry and as senior accountants. A whole number of graduates successfully develop their own businesses.

SPORTS FACILITIES MANAGEMENT
63-41-M/01 Economy and Business

Sports Facilities Management is a multi-disciplinary specialization (combining primarily economic education and physical education) and covers a wide area of sports and PE. Our graduates will be able to organize and manage PE/sports processes focused on prevention of disorders arising from negative impacts of contemporary lifestyle. Economic education enables them to hold middle-management positions in sports organizations in both the public and private sector. Our graduates will also find jobs as managers in physical education and sports facilities and sports clubs.

Our graduates are knowledgeable in economics, law, management and marketing, and are familiarized with sports-facilities information systems. They are capable of managing physical training and sports facilities including the agenda of accounting, human resources and admin.

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SCHOOL HISTORY

Early days before the construction of the beautiful present building were tough.

Prior to opening of today’s school building, teaching in Holešovice was fairly modest. The pioneering days of local schooling were no walk in the park and neither was the life of the first teachers. At the beginning of the second half of the 19th century, teaching in Czech language was restricted to inadequate premises of a one-storey school building opposite the U České koruny inn in today‘s Partyzánská Street.

Construction of new buildings for Czech schools was presumably triggered off by the Imperial School Act of 1869. Pursuant to this Act, not only was the mandatory school attendance extended from six to eight years, but construction and repair of school buildings became an obligation of municipalities. Accordingly, the 1880s saw a whole number of new schools being erected including the one in Jablonského Street in Holešovice (others were built in Libeň and Vyšehrad).

Construction of Today’s Representative Building

Our school building was constructed between May 1883 and August 1884 by builder Alois Elhenický to the design of architect Josef Srdínek in Neo-Renaissance style. Established by the municipality of Holešovice, the school gave the pupils an opportunity to attend a state-of-the-art school building with a gymnasium, a chapel with an organ, study-rooms with paintings, simple physics apparatuses and herbariums. The building had appropriate sanitation and it was heated by coal burnt in a tall round stove. Gas was brought into the building at the beginning of the 20th century and was also used for lighting. Electricity and central heating were not put in place until after WWI.

The building originally housed two Czech municipal schools – one for boys (located in the right-hand side of the building – today’s OA Holešovice) and one for girls in the left wing (today’s SPŠO). The curricula for boys and girls were different. Girls were expected to be content with lower education, therefore they had fewer lessons in some subjects.

In 1897 the lawn around the school was converted to a botanical, vegetable and flower garden. The garden was enclosed with an iron-rod fence and even had a water supply installed.

Different Schooling for Girls and Boys

For girls, the main emphasis was placed on handwork, as part of their household-oriented education. School attendance was mandatory but some children failed to attend for a variety of reasons: they often had to help support themselves and their families, or they had no shoes or clothing. Even though parents were reprimanded and fined for poor school attendance of their kids, it did not always help. It was common for teachers with their pupils to make trips to various locations in the Prague area, especially in periods of hot weather (so-called heat holidays). There were no classes when it was too hot.

Decline of Schooling in Wartime

In the years of WWI, the state of education in our country deteriorated. Some teachers were conscripted, some schools or parts thereof were made available to the army. With our school it was no different. As a result, some classes had to learn in shifts. Teaching was also disrupted by shortages of food, textbooks, notebooks, pens and ink. Kids were affected by general malnutrition, often manifested in school attendance fluctuation.

Our school building continued to house two municipal schools and a special-needs class of the girl school. As from the 1921/22 school year, the number of classes began to decline. Starting from 1925/26 the local municipal school had five classes only. Co-education (mixed-sex classes) was introduced in the school year of 1920/21.

The school was focused on practical education – emphasis was placed on working in craft rooms (using the saw, hammer, planer, etc.) – and on general formation of personality.

The First Czechoslovak Republic

Despite multiple propositions, the efforts made throughout the period of the First Czechoslovak Republic to eliminate differences between municipal schools and lower stage of secondary schools were unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the number of pupils in our school increased, with noticeable attempts to raise the standard of general education.

In 1939, an extension-school for dressmaking apprentices was placed in the boys’ municipal school on the second floor of the building whilst the 6th Municipal Boy School remained on the first floor and one classroom on the ground floor was made available to the Czech Braille Press.

World War II

In May 1941, five classes of the boys’ school were moved to the local girls’ school and the vacated classrooms became home to a tank detachment of the German army. The troops left during the summer holidays of 1941, though, thanks to which normal classes could start again as from September 1941. However, in September 1941, part of the building was confiscated for a German military institute and the boys’ school had to be moved over to the ground floor in the right wing of the building on what was then Myslbekovo Square (today’s Ortenovo Square), namely to classrooms of the 4th General Boy School. The school inventory was carried by teachers, pupils and parents alike. Later on, the boys’ school from Jablonského Street was moved several times within the same building, causing accidental losses of inventory. The special-needs school from Jablonského Street also had to move to this same building, namely to the basement thereof. Meanwhile, the Germans in Jablonského Street managed the building in a way that was rather peculiar, converting, for instance, the school gymnasium into stables.

Teacher workload during the German occupation was huge – they had to teach 30 hours a week (or 2 hours less if over fifty years of age). They only had 14 days of vacation, having to spend the rest of summer holidays by working – helping with the harvest, hop-picking, or frequently assisting in the city hall.

Kids were often malnourished; diseases and epidemics were rampant. Learning was disrupted by frequent “coal-holidays” in winter, and later on by air defense alerts. It was often necessary to organize provisional teaching and homework for home learning. During the Prague Uprising, many kids took part in heavy fighting against the fascist occupants.

In May 1945, a barricade was erected on the nearby Trojský Bridge and among its defenders was a student of our school, František Soukal. He was injured and carried to the school building where he allegedly died in the cellar. A plaque commemorating his death has been placed inside the school building.

After Liberation

A total of four schools were placed in our building after the liberation: mechanical locksmithing apprenticeship school in the left-hand wing, the girls’ and boys’ municipal schools and the special-needs school in the right wing. The special-needs school also had a classroom in the corridor on the first floor. In the school year 1947/48 the special-needs school was moved over to the building in today's Ortenovo Square.

New School System

A new Education Act was passed in April 1953 to implement a new school system. The existing three stages were merged, mandatory school attendance was cut down to 8 years (from 6 to 14 years of age). National and secondary schools were merged into eight-year secondary schools or, alternatively, they incorporated also the 3rd stage to form eleven-year secondary schools where years 9-11 were optional. The positive effect of the Act was to make secondary education accessible to as many students as possible.

Our building witnessed these changes too: two national schools were replaced by the 42^nd Eight-Year Secondary School. The left wing of the building continued to house the locksmith apprentice school. On September 1, 1954, this part of the building was handed over to the Secondary Dress-making Vocational School (up to then located in Šimáčkova Street). This school started operating as from January 1, 1955.

A resolution of April 1959 enacted a mandatory nine-year primary school attendance for youngsters up to the age of 15 in order to provide all young people from 6 to 15 with a comprehensive basic general education. The subsequent School and Education System Act of December 15, 1960 established yet another new organizational form for secondary schools. They were separated from the mandatory stage of primary education, which now became once again a nine-year elementary school, followed by a three-year optional stage – a separate secondary school of comprehensive general education.

Naturally, the changes impacted our school building again. From 1961 it became home to a nine-year elementary school, which in 1964 moved to the school building in Ortenovo Square whilst our building was allocated to a secondary business apprentice school (later to become an integrated secondary business school). In the 1980s and 1990s, our school ranked among the largest and best schools in Prague. It often had more than 50 classes and was preparing the apprentices for a variety of professions in trade and business.

Establishment of Holešovice Business Academy

On September 1, 2005, our school was re-named to Holešovice Business Aacademy and, consistent with the new name, apprentice specializations were abolished. Our school provides complete secondary education with the maturita exam in the Business Academy specialization focused on tourist industry, international trade, banking, marketing, management and sports management.

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