After-school centres are educational facilities providing leisure-based education to pupils of one or more basic schools in line with their own educational programmes that enable them to specialise according to the pupils’ interests and needs. After-school centres provide educational, recreational, sports and interest-developing activities to pupils after classes. They serve preferably the youngest pupils (1st to 5th grade). After school centres offer a diverse programme of financially affordable interest-developing activities in a well-known environment that gives children a sense of safety.
The number of after-school centres has stayed at a steady level for the last couple of years – in the school year 2012/2013 there were 3 974 of them in the Czech Republic. Almost 270 thousand pupils attended these after-school centres in the same year.