“Using an analogy with the education system, our family Foundation successfully completed the equivalent of the compulsory nine years school attendance,” says a founder of the Foundation, Mrs Renáta Kellnerová. Over the nine years of its operation, the Foundation has distributed a total of CZK 621 million to beneficiaries in primary, secondary, and tertiary education. Similarly, as in 2016, projects and individual beneficiaries received overall support of CZK 88 million last year.
For the Open Gate eight-year grammar school, 2017 was a year of changes. Having spent eleven years with Open Gate, its principal, Peter Nitsche, retired, and his position was taken by Kateřina Kožnarová, until then head of the sciences section. More than CZK 40 million was distributed to Open Gate grammar school students in need-based grants in 2017. The Open Gate grammar school was opened in 2005 and since then, a total of 308 grantees have attended or are attending it with support provided by the Foundation, i.e. 56% of the students.
For the seventh year, the Foundation also sponsored the Helping Schools Succeed project geared towards long-term improvements in the quality of the Czech public education system. The project received CZK 37 million, thanks to which the education experts could work on raising the quality of instruction provided by a total of 800 teachers at 22 schools involved in the project. More than 8,700 pupils of primary schools in the Czech Republic were developing their positive attitude to education and their talent through those teachers.
The Foundation also sponsored university students again in 2017. Twelve grantees under the Universities project graduated from a higher education institution or university last year. In the 2017/2018 academic year, 24 new students won a grant and started their first year, and 37 grantees, supported by the Foundation, are continuing their studies begun in past years. In the current academic year the Foundation is providing financial grants to 61 university students and over the eight years for which the project has been running, 149 graduates from secondary schools in the Czech Republic have received funds for school fees and other costs incurred in university enrolment.
The Kellner Family Foundation has posted the complete Annual Report 2017 at https://www.kellnerfoundation.cz/en/download/1453/vz-kff-a4-en-fin-audit.pdf