PhDr. Ing. Vít Holeček, DiS., Ph.D.

The Masaryk Academy of Labour (MAL) was founded in 1920 as the first academic institution for Czech (Czechoslovakian) technicians and engineers. It was the centre of technical work whose aim was to organise it so that the skills of all people would be used as well as the natural resources of Czechoslovakia in an economical way. Due to the change of political system, the institution became part of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Science in 1952. As an academic technical institution, the Masaryk Academy of Labour influenced also the development and adjustment of high school education and university technical education in the form of independent proposals. Thanks to its Commission for the Democratisation of Education, it supported the professional development of technically skilled workers in the form of practical handbooks and lectures. There was also the Commission for the Problem of Unemployed Technically Skilled Workers, whose aim was to find how to use the abilities of unemployed technicians. Last but not least, it also financially and administratively supported work placement schemes and academic residency programmes of the Czech engineers in American major industrial plants, such as Ford’s Plant in Detroit, etc. By all these activities, the Masaryk Academy of Labour contributed to the development of the engineering elite in the newly formed Czechoslovakian Republic. The aim of the article will be to introduce the activities of the above mentioned Commission for the Democratisation of Education.

The Masaryk Academy of Labour was constituted under an act of law from 1920. It was the first academic scientific institution uniting technicians and engineers in the Czech lands and the centre of technical labour in the Czechoslovak Republic. The academy was mainly focused on practical and theoretical activities in the area of natural sciences, agriculture, civil and mechanical engineering, chemical technology and public technical administration. The main difference between the academy and other academic institutions in the Czechoslovak Republic was the accent on applied research. This academic scientific institution existed in Czechoslovakia until 1952, when it was incorporated in the newly founded Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. The most important international relations which the Masaryk Academy of Labour maintained were with Yugoslavia (the Masaryk Academy of Labour helped to create a similar local academy of engineering in Yugoslavia) and the United States of America. The archive fund of the Presidium of this technical academy, which is deposited in the archive of the Czech Academy of Sciences, provides the records of sending the Czechoslovakian engineers of the First Republic to a work-based and research trainings to great industrial plants, e.g. Ford’s factories in Detroit, etc. This fund also contains the reports of the young engineers about their industrial practice abroad. This article will present the details about these trainee programs.