The Evangelical Church will build a new primary and secondary school in Holešovice

Prague - The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren (ČCE) will build a new school building in Prague's Holešovice near the metro station. It is expected to house the Brethren primary school as well as the Evangelical Academy, with the church synod agreeing to the project. The investment has been supported by the State Environmental Fund with a grant of over 130 million crowns from the EU Modernization Fund. A tender for the supplier will be announced, church spokesman Jiří Hofman confirmed to ČTK today.

Due to the allocation of the state grant, ČCE exceptionally convened its synod. The highest governing body of the evangelical church supported the project on Saturday. According to Hofman, the architectural design is complete, created by the studio of architect Hana Seho, a professor at one of the studios of the Faculty of Architecture at ČVUT.

"The building permit is valid for about two months," Hofman told ČTK. According to him, the support of the project by the synod means the preparation of the tender for the supplier, from which the total price will emerge.

In 2020, approximately 17,000 students attended church schools in the Czech Republic, while about 960,000 children attended elementary schools in the country during the 2020/2021 school year, according to statistics from the Ministry of Education. Some church schools are highly sought after special schools. For example, the Diakonie ČCE is currently renovating the school building V Zápolí in Prague 4, which is one of the few that provides education for children and students with intellectual disabilities, multiple disabilities, and autism.

The State Environmental Fund reported that it allocated 130.38 million crowns for the construction of the Brethren School in Prague in its summary of grants for last year.

Architect Seho has previously worked on the school project. "Her studio designed the building as a very sustainable construction that could become a model project for community facilities in the 21st century," said ČCE in a post on social media. It includes a green terrace, heat pumps, photovoltaics, a rainwater reservoir, and a ventilation and shading system.

The Brethren School is currently located on an adjacent plot in Holešovice. However, according to ČCE, it will also be a branch of the Evangelical Academy, that is, a church pedagogical high school and secondary vocational school. The latter is currently located on Husinecká Street in Prague 4.

Church education was restored after 1989, with the oldest church schools established after the revolution being the Brethren School run by the Czech Brethren Evangelical Church and the St. Ursula Primary School in Prague 1. The first church schools began teaching after the Velvet Revolution in the 1990/1991 school year.