RURAL SCHOOL IN THE CONTEXT OF COMMUNITYLED LOCAL DEVELOPMENT

The paper is based on the general concept of knowledge society and deals with regional development theories which emphasize local environment as an important part of rural development. The following two questions were studied: (1) What is the early experience of municipalities when establishing a Community School? (2) In which other municipalities would it be possible and appropriate to build such a school? For this purpose, both secondary and primary research methods were combined with data collection techniques – document study, observation, and questioning. Because the examined problem is set in the context of community-led local development (CLLD), violation of the ‘bottom-up’ approach principle is also highlighted. The paper presents the first experiences in the establishment of seven Community Schools within the Pilsen region and based on them also recommendations for the feasibility and suitability of establishing this type of school in other rural municipalities.The results show that the educational sector is not assisting in the modernization of rural schools with regard to community education and that the possibility of the contemporary and meaningful existence of schools in small rural municipalities remains ignored.