Prague Student Summit is a year-round educational project for more than 300 high school and university students from all parts of the Czech Republic and Central Europe with 20 years’ history, organized by the Association for International Affairs. It provides young people with the opportunity to broaden their knowledge of the international affairs, human rights, economics, cultural heritage or environment and improve their rhetoric, presentation and argumentation skills at the same time. Moreover, part of the project is conducted in English and by being so it develops the active language skills of the participants.
Prague Student Summit’s main educational method is the simulation of the activities of international organizations (UN, EU, NATO, OSCE). Each participant represents one existing state during the negotiations. Throughout the year, the participants familiarize themselves with the situation and life in their country and with the positions of the state to various global issues. At the end of the year, the students then propose solutions to the problems that the real international organizations deal with and they also try to carry through what the ambassador of their state would actually strive for.
I am glad that there are people in our country who don’t take lightly the international politics and its context – politics as a service to the common good, as a service to ideals, which are superior to some particular interests.
Vaclav Havel Tweet it Pass
The Summit enjoys a significant support from well-known personalities. Each year, tens of both Czech and international eminent diplomats, politicians, academics, businessmen and journalists attend the event. In the past, Prague Summit Student was taken under patronage by such personalities as Václav Havel, Karel Schwarzenberg, Jan Kavan, Petr Pithart or Madeleine Albright.
Prague Student Summit had also the privilege to host the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee General Petr Pavel, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lubomír Zaorálek, President of the Czech Senate Milan Štěch, diplomats Štefan Fülle, Hynek Kmoníček and Marie Chatardová, journalists Erik Tabery, Jindřich Šídlo and Jakub Železný, economists Zdeněk Tůma, Petr Jánský and Tomáš Sedláček, expert on etiquette Ladislav Špaček, prosecutor Lenka Bradáčová, American ambassador to the Czech Republic Andrew Schapiro and many more. Prague Student Summit therefore offers young people a unique platform for meeting and inspiring each other and being inspired by the personalities of domestic and international public life.
The students get also the opportunities of other educational programmes with broader focus, mainly interactive courses concentrated on mastering rhetoric skills, proper and decent argumentation, dealing with academic texts and information in general or on critical thinking among other things. The project, thanks to its focus on informal education, represents an appropriate addition to high school and university education, since it concentrates on the aspects of personal development which tend to be omitted by the Czech educational system.
