The English College in Prague (ECP) takes its inspiration from the Prague English Grammar School (PEGS), which existed from the 1920s until shut down by the Nazis in 1939 and then, after a brief post-war flowering, shut again by the Communists in 1953. The Many former PEGS students looked back fondly on their school days, and took a keen interest in the fledgling English College.  One such link returned to prominence recently.

The photo above shows Eva Stanovska in 1947 when Eva was a 16-year-old student at PEGS. She had attended a Scout and Guide folk dance festival at Hampton Court during the summer of 1947, where she discovered that the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip was due to take place on her birthday that November. She suggested to her PEGS classmates that they should send a Czech national costume to the royal couple as a wedding present. They agreed, but realised that Princess Elizabeth would not know how the costume should be worn, so this photo of Eva accompanied the costume to London.

Eva and her husband left Czechoslovakia in 1968 and moved to the United States, where she worked at Harvard as Librarian at the famous Museum of Comparative Zoology. She had not been allowed to study in Prague because her father had been imprisoned by the Communists in 1952 after a show trial. She went on to obtain a degree at Harvard while working there full time, finally becoming Dr Eva Jonas after the fall of communism, when Charles University recognised her achievements.

Eva died in 2020 and her daughter Olga Jonas decided to establish a scholarship in her memory at the English College, which Eva had supported from its inception.

This decision was announced at the ECP Founders’ Day in October 2023, when a new ECP Scholarship Fundraising Appeal was launched with the aim of raising funds to assist more students from lower income families to attend the English College.

Image: Olga Jonas at the ECP Founders’ Day event in Prague, October 2023, holding flowers

With substantial donations also from two founder governors of the English College, Martyn Bond and Ann Lewis, the ECP Scholarship Fundraising Appeal got off to a flying start.

Anyone wishing to donate to the Appeal can do so here.

The English College is vacating its historic site to allow for the reconstruction of the old building and development of the adjacent site. The school will temporarily be sharing a new building with a Prague primary school, in premises kindly made available by the local authority.  Building work will start in the winter and the school hopes to re-open the iconic blue doors in late 2025.

Check out the video as we temporarily say goodbye to the current site here.

It was with great sadness that we received the news of the passing of ECP’s Czech Patron Karel Schwarzenberg. Karel Schwarzenberg became the College’s Patron in 2013, following the death of Václav Havel thanks to whose initiative the English College in Prague was established in 1994.

Karel Schwarzenberg took his patronage of the ECP very seriously and, despite his poor health in recent years, he always tried to come to important school events – the College’s Founders’ Day or the Graduation Ceremony.

Thanks to his generosity, the Karel Schwarzenberg Scholarship was added to the list of ECP’s scholarships in 2020. Two years ago, the school jointly created the annual Karel Schwarzenberg Award, which goes to a student who not only has an excellent knowledge of history, but who also understands historical contexts well, is able to apply them to the present and is interested in public affairs. Karel Schwarzenberg believed that these abilities are the prerequisites of a good politician.

As a politician, he was one of the most prominent faces on the Czech political scene. He always tried to improve the political culture and even though he was not successful in the presidential election, he set a political and moral example to many young people.

At the same time, he was respected by European and world politicians for his balance and wisdom. Carl Bildt, the former Prime Minister of Sweden, said of him, “He was the wisest European – in the deepest sense – that I have been fortunate to get to know.” Former British Minister for Europe, David Lidington, said that “Karel Schwarzenberg was both one of the wisest and and one of the wittiest colleagues I worked with on European and international affairs.”

Karel Schwarzenberg enthusiastically supported our students in their efforts to raise money for the Václav Havel Scholarship, intended for Roma children. He recently took the time to talk to the students who organised the Václav Havel Scholarship Fund and explained to them personally why the Roma community was close to his heart. It was an unforgettable meeting for everyone present.

He always took an active interest in what was happening at the College. He was very pleased with our academic achievements, but above all, with the activities of the students, in whom he saw such great potential for the development of our country, and especially with the charitable projects they undertook for the benefit of all humanity.

Just two weeks ago, he supported a team of students preparing a Model United Nations student conference and sent them a donation towards the costs. The news of his death reached them on the last day of the conference. His support for our students’ activities has always been a great boost to everyone involved.

His legacy for us will be his life of service, as service to the community and the importance of reciprocity is also our priority at the English College. We will always remember his sense of duty to his country and his message will live on in our school.

We also think of the Prince’s family and express our deepest condolences to them.