From the History of our Department

The Department of Psychology was established in 1964 at the then independent Faculty of Education in Ostrava, where it provided teaching of psychological disciplines in teacher education. In 1970 the Department of Education and Psychology was created. This relatively large department included a psychological laboratory and an academic counselling room. The merging of psychologists and educators into one department was considered a bit of a stopgap at the time, yet it persisted until the early 1990s. In that year, the long-standing efforts of the psychologists to re-establish a separate psychology department succeeded. The first head of the department was still at the Faculty of Education, prof. PhDr. Karel Paulík, CSc. After the foundation of the University of Ostrava in 1991, the Department of Psychology is part of the Faculty of Arts. Since then, in addition to the preparation of new study subjects for both teacher and non-teacher studies at the University of Ostrava, the Department has introduced new study fields within the programme of social policy and social work gradually implemented at the bachelor's (Professional Counselling and Retraining), master's and doctoral level (Counselling in Social Work). This was in line with the then current trend of humanizing the region and developing human resources. The department changed its name several times over time. In the academic year 2001/2002, the study of psychology for teachers was separated from the scope of the department and the Department of Psychology of Education was created, to which several members transferred from the original Department of Psychology. Since the academic year 2003/2004, this Department has been dislocated to the Faculty of Education. A long-term intensive effort to meet the continuing interest in the study of professional psychology was realised in 2009, when the Bachelor's programme Psychology was accredited. Subsequently, in 2011, the Master's double major in Education Psychology was also accredited, which was later transferred to the Faculty of Education OU. Currently, the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Arts offers a single major Bachelor's degree in Psychology.

Updated: 05. 01. 2023