A strategy without a goal. The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports has distributed over 30 billion to universities without verifying the benefits of the money distributed
PRESS RELEASE ON AUDIT NO 24/13 – 16 June 2025
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS) has distributed over CZK 30 billion for the development of universities without making it clear how this financial support has specifically improved teaching. Indeed, the Ministry has not monitored how these funds have improved education and whether the state has received adequate value for money. The Supreme Audit Office (SAO) also found shortcomings in the projects - for example, nine out of 13 projects audited by the SAO violated the conditions of granting the subsidy. Overall, the Ministry supported 600 projects across 26 public universities. This follows from the SAO audit focused on the renewal of the material and technical base of selected universities1 between 2017 and 2023.
Prior to distributing the funds, the MoEYS did not specify what exactly it wanted to improve, how it would recognize success, or how it would evaluate the results. The strategic documents lacked specific and measurable objectives - instead they contained general formulations without deadlines, baselines or impact indicators. Thus, the Ministry could not verify how and whether the billions of crowns actually led to improvements in the quality of teaching or whether they contributed, for example, only to construction and purchases without the necessary effect. When distributing the money, the MoEYS only looked at parameters - often technical - that did not show how teaching had improved. These included, for example, the number of new classrooms, the built-up space, the total usable area, and so on.
However, the money itself was used for its intended purpose, although not without some shortcomings. For example, in six cases out of the sample of projects audited, the universities did not sufficiently justify why they needed specific teaching spaces or expensive equipment, how exactly they would use them and who they would serve. For example, applications for financial support lacked information on how many students and teachers would use the new equipment or how intensively. In one case, the university purchased expensive equipment that had not been used for a long time - a 'laboratory stand' costing CZK 3 million that had not been used for eight months and a 'system for detailed diagnostics of scalar and vector fields' with an acquisition cost of over CZK 17 million. The latter had not been used for a whole year.
The SAO also found that in nine cases universities violated the rules of subsidy use - for example, they did not send progress reports in time, did not meet the target parameters or provided incomplete or misleading information in the reports.
Communication Department
Supreme Audit Office
1] The SAO audited the University of Ostrava, Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem and the Technical University of Ostrava.