Pre-school care in Czechia in regional context

Pre-school care in Czechia in regional context Abstract This thesis concerns the regional distribution of the participation rate in preschool education, that means examining the ratio of children enrolled in preliminary education and the total number of children in the age group 3-5. The first part outlines important concepts related to preschool education such as the differences between early and preschool care and the question of preschool education in selected European states. The aim of this thesis is to locate the factors influenced the rate of participation of children in preschool education in different districts for the school year of 2015/2016. The selected demographic, socio-geographic and socio-economic indicators, from official statistics for the period 2008-2012, or from the 2011 population census, i.e. the period in which pre- school children from the analyzed school year were born, were introduced into the analysis. Indicators that showed a statistically significant dependence on the variable rate of participation of children in pre-school education entered the factor analysis. Based on its results, three factors with the biggest influence on district variation of the monitored indicator were identified. Groups of districts of a similar type were delimited using cluster analysis, where..