More than three quarters of Czechs are satisfied with the level of interesting aspects of their jobs and with relationships between people at their workplace. More than a half of employees also were satisfied with the care received from their employer, with material possessions and equipment at the workplace, with the way their work is organised, with its intensity, with their line-manager, and with the extent to which their expertise is used.

The survey results confirmed that the upbringing of children was concentrated in the hands of women. About four fifths of respondents with children say for example that mother takes the child to the doctor’s or used to go to the doctor’s in case of the grown up child, as well as stays or used to stay with the child at home during illness. Mainly mothers read stories to their children and learn with them.

Among other issues, a September poll by the Public Opinion Research Centre investigated the importance party affiliation plays in the gaining of employment in the public administration. The respondents were generally questioned how important party affiliation is for gaining employment in the public administration. Moreover, they were asked to study four hypothetical situations concerning four fictitious persons to assess the importance of party affiliation in these individual cases.

As regards tax collection from them, citizens consider the existing effectiveness of the public administration to be quite high. In the opinion of 47% of economically active persons, the public administration is ‘very effective’ in the collection of their taxes. 23% consider it ’quite effective’, 9% ‘medium effective’ and only 5% of those polled stated that the public administration is ‘quite’ or ‘totally’ ineffective in respect of tax collection from them.

The standard of education is valued as best at grammar schools (70 % positively, 8 % negatively) and universities (63 % positively, 8 % negatively). Two thirds of respondents also consider elementary schools as having a good standard (66 % positive, 22 % negative opinions) and a slightly smaller number thinks this about secondary schools completed by a school-leaving examination (62 % positive, 18 % negative opinions).

The September survey also included a section of questions devoted to issues on the Czech school system. Among other things, the respondents gave their opinions about the issues of equal access to education, grammar schools providing schooling over more than four years, and private secondary schools. Almost two thirds of Czech citizens are worried that many talented children in this country will not be given a chance to study, but 6 out of 10 respondents agree with the statement that only ability and the will to study will decide what education level will be achieved and by whom.

In its September survey, the Public Opinion Research Centre asked the respondents the following question: ”How would you evaluate the activity of the following political parties and institutions within the period of the last twelve months? Please use marking system as used in schools, where one is the best and five is the worst mark.” The best results – with an average mark lower than 3 – were achieved by media and the president.

Of all the monitored areas, citizens took the most negative view of the current state of corruption and security. A substantial majority of those polled (two thirds in the event of corruption) voiced their dissatisfaction with these issues. The prevalence of dissatisfaction is also quite noticeable in the assessment of the judicature and the state of the legal environment. A more critical than positive assessment is given to one’s own possibilities to participate in the decision-making process about public affairs and the functioning of authorities.

In the first half of September the president was regarded as trustworthy by 61%, Czech government by 29%, Chamber of Deputies by 22%, Senate by 21%, regional councils by 36% and local councils by 57% of the polled citizens. The last survey brought – with the exception of the president – a statistically quite significant drop of confidence in all the constitutional institutions. As far as the government is concerned, it is a long-term trend, because within the last 9 months the government has gradually lost 20 % of people, who initially considered it trustworthy.

In September, 14% of those surveyed were satisfied with the political situation, which is a drop by 6 percentage points when compared to June. 29% were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, while 52% of respondents were dissatisfied – an increase by 7 percentage points since June. People with good living standards and young people who do not yet have the right to vote more frequently belonged to the group of the satisfied.