The Charles University Rector, Prof. Václav Hampl, accepted an invitation to meet the students of Gymnázium Cheb (secondary grammar school in the town of Cheb) on April 20 in the conference hall of Prague’s Jalta Hotel and answer their questions concerning his private life, his Rector’s duties as well as the state of university education in this country and abroad.

The Cheb secondary grammar school has been organizing meetings with noted personalities for many years. This latest one was the 120^th. “We believe that meeting people who have succeeded in different walks of life will motivate our students,” says the school’s manager and history teacher Miroslav Stulák, who has been organizing the student meetings since 1986. “The students who have travelled to Prague are the ones who showed an interest and have good results at school,” he adds.

The meeting took the form of a discussion. Rector Václav Hampl faced a barrage of questions for almost an hour. It was obvious that the students had done their homework on the internet to research the Rector’s field of scientific expertise, the fact that he had just been elected member of the presidency of the European University Association as well as how many children he had.

And what were the students most keen to find out? For instance what had influenced his choice of university, what the Rector’s job involved, what his feelings were when he was elected to the European University Association and whether he found friends there. Inevitably, another round of questions concerned university education – the young people sought advice as to how to recognize a good university and they were interested to hear the Rector’s opinion on state school-leaving exams and the introduction of tuition fees. “I was pleasantly surprised by the students’ knowledge and how well prepared they were for the discussion. For me, personally, it was a very pleasant afternoon,” the Charles University Rector Prof. Václav Hampl concluded.

(Lucie Kettnerová)

Translation: Pavla Horáková