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August 30th, 2008

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New minister is smart like a 'fox'

Young kid on the block Liška wants to boost Czech schools with new EU funds

By Julie O'Shea
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
March 5th, 2008 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST

New Education Minister Ondřej Liška has been on the job since December and says he feels he is up for future challenges. enlarge

COURTESY PHOTO

Even though teachers are critical, they say they like what they see of Liška so far. enlarge

COURTESY PHOTO

Liška faces big expectations from President Václav Klaus since taking office Dec. 4. enlarge

THE LIŠKA FILE

Born: July 14, 1977 in Brno
Education: Bachelor's and master's degrees in political science from Masaryk University
Personal: Married with one daughter, Stella
Experience: Deputy chair for foreign policy in the Green Party (2007); chair of the committee on European Affairs in Parliament (2006); member of Parliament for the Green Party in south Moravia (2006); adviser to the Green Group of the European Parliament for cohesion policy and structural funds (2004-06)

Source: Government of the Czech Republic

The phone call comes as a rare, unexpected surprise.

On the other end of the line is Ondřej Liška, and he’s apologizing for not getting back to me sooner. He wants to know if I’d be interested in stopping by his office later that afternoon for a little one-on-one — would that fit into my schedule?

For a brief moment, I wonder if perhaps this is some kind of cruel joke.

But Liška, who at 30 is one of the country’s youngest-serving education ministers, doesn’t have to ask twice. It’s not often a high-ranking Czech political figure will have time to make personal calls to the media, let alone agree to sit for a candid, no-holds-barred interview, without some kind of pushy assistant by his side.

Liška, however, is not exactly your typical politician, at least not at first glance.

Stepping out from behind a large wooden desk in his second-floor office at the ministry’s Malá Strana headquarters, Liška — youthful, smiling and almost uncomfortably handsome (it seems rather fitting that his last name means “fox” in Czech) — appears a little out of place among the room’s gilded antique furnishings and dark hues.

“I hate it,” he readily admits, looking around with a hint of disgust. His new digs do indeed give off a stuffy museum vibe, “and I don’t think [working] in a museum is my dream,” he says with a grin.

Liška, a dedicated member of the Green Party with a background in political science and religious studies, has been on the job since the beginning of December, taking the reins of a beleaguered state department that underwent a rather tumultuous 2007.

Liška’s predecessor, Dana Kuchtová, was essentially pushed out of the post last fall amid claims she misappropriated funding from the European Union. The country’s education system was dealt another unflattering blow a month later when the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Czech schools were illegally discriminating against Roma students.

And, on his first day of work, Liška faced hundreds of striking teachers.

He knows he has tough days ahead of him, but Liška says he’s ready for the challenge.

“It can be overwhelming,” he confides. “It’s very difficult, and [the job] can also be very demanding, not only for the time [that’s involved with it but also for] the thousand things you can’t control.”

But, Liška adds, “I know the troubles we are facing in education. They are serious, and therefore the amount of work that needs to be done is endless. … I know that some things can be solved within a month, and some things can be solved within six months, and some things we can only start to solve and then see within 10, 15 years what results this might bring.”

Kuchtová’s resignation from the Education Ministry last October launched a divisive two-month search for her replacement that saw a lot of infighting among the Greens, the party responsible for filling the post.

Tensions escalated when Martin Bursík, the party’s chairman, picked Liška for the job, essentially ignoring others’ worries about his top choice. The primary complaint, voiced mostly by Kuchtová’s camp, was that Liška was simply too young for such an important position.

Even President Václav Klaus expressed concern, publicly stating that he’d sign on to the nomination with “trembling hands.”

These days, Kuchtová refuses to discuss Liška’s job performance.

“This is a question I cannot answer. I don’t want to answer this question,” she says when reached by phone. “It’s not objective. I don’t respond to anyone [when asked] about his work. It’s better for the party.”

Liška takes such criticism in stride.

“Some colleagues or politicians said, ‘Yes, he’s young,’ but they also said being young can be an advantage because the will to change things might be bigger,” Liška notes earnestly. “I have a big variety of experience even though the number of my years might not seem appropriate.”

A graduate of Masaryk University in Brno, Liška has lectured at universities across Europe and Asia about how religion and politics can collide. He has worked in Brussels as an adviser to the Green Party in European Parliament. And he has clocked numerous hours with a variety of nonprofit groups.

“People should comment on what I have done and what I am going to do, and not my age,” Liška says.

František Dobšík, head of the teachers’ union, says it is way too early in Liška’s term to lay judgment but seems genuinely pleased with what he’s seen so far.

“I just want to say that, after a long time, he is the first person who wants to communicate very closely with us,” Dobšík points out. “We have managed to sign a structured treaty. Both sides are interested in cooperating and exchanging materials.”

Liška had to be persuaded a few times before he finally said yes to the job, noting that the positives far outweighed the negatives, “and that is why I accepted this.”

He has two years until his term expires, which, Liška is quick to point out, is not much time, especially since he has a pretty extensive “to do” list.

“In certain parameters, [our schools] lag behind, and this is, of course, an issue for me and for this ministry,” Liška says. “What we need is to lead students not only to factual knowledge, but we need them to be able to draw comprehension from written text, and this is a concrete challenge with a complex solution.”

He’d like to stabilize Czech education as a whole and has spent weeks trying to figure out the best way to allocate EU innovation and research funding, a tedious process that contributed to Kuchtová’s departure and one that Liška wants resolved by this spring. He is also hoping to standardize the high-school leaving exam by next year, which he calls “a huge logistical project” that has been “very much delayed.” And finally, he wants to create a higher education system that will be able “to compete with the rest of Europe and the world.”

This, by no means, is an 8-to-5 job. In addition to these long-term goals, Liška says he is also keenly aware there are more pressing concerns demanding his attention, such as unhappy teachers. He says he has already had numerous meetings with trade unions.

“Of course, the issue of financing the regional school system … is an ongoing problem that has remained unsolved for years,” Liška says. “I support the demand for more money, but I will fight for it and do something only if I have a very concrete plan in my hands of how to enhance the quality of education.”

In recent weeks, he has also had the EU breathing down his neck about Roma discrimination, a situation that was brought to the forefront last fall when the European Court of Human Rights found that the Czech Republic illegally allowed Roma students to be placed in special schools in the late 1990s.

“I think the Education Ministry has done a lot in recent years to change this, but there is still a lot to be done. And I want to do that,” Liška says. However, “the integration of Roma kids is something that can’t be solved from year to year. It needs a whole generation or two that will dedicate themselves to [finding] a solution.”

He is also hopeful that some kind of solution can be found to mend the tensions within his fractured political party. Things have improved since the heated nomination process, he says, but the situation hasn’t completely been smoothed over yet.

“People who [were] involved in this conflict are seeing more and more that it doesn’t lead anywhere, and certain cooperation is needed among all of us,” Liška says. “I wouldn’t say I have bridged the conflict, but I definitely believe my nomination contributed to mending it.”

In the meantime, Liška has other bridges he is worried about mending.

“I think,” he says, choosing his words carefully, “this institution works even when the minister is not in place, but after awhile — and this is the case here — it loses its direction; it loses a very important thing, which is political leadership. I think this is what I would like to change.”

The clock is ticking.

— Hela Balínová contributed to this report.

Julie O'Shea can be reached at joshea@praguepost.com

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