Eur J Educ. 2020;00:1–17. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ejed | 1 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1 | INTRODUCTION One of the factors that influences the quality of formal education is teacher shortage, caused, among other fac- tors, by the drop-out of qualified teachers. Novice teachers seem to be the most vulnerable professional group in this respect (Ingersoll, 2003). Concern for teacher retention and attrition rates has gradually become a global issue. A high drop-out rate among beginning teachers is reported in English-speaking countries, namely the US, ranging in various studies from 39% to 50% (Ingersoll & Smith, 2003; Johnson & Birkeland, 2003; Smethem, 2007), the UK with 35% (Sturman, Cheramie, & Cashen, 2005), Australia with a range of 20%–50% (Buchanan et al., 2013; Manuel, 2003) and Canada with 20% (Martel, 2009). Other countries with high drop-out rates include the Netherlands with a 25% rate (CentERdata, 2013 in Helms-Lorenz, van de Grift, & Maulana, 2016) and Norway Received: 8 August 2018 | Revised: 4 June 2019 | Accepted: 19 August 2019 DOI: 10.1111/ejed.12373 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Novice teachers in the Czech Republic and their drop-out intentions Světlana Hanušová 1 | Michaela Píšová 2 | Tomáš Kohoutek 3 | Eva Minaříková 3 | Stanislav Ježek 4 | Tomáš Janík 2 | Jan Mareš 3 | Miroslav Janík 2 1 Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic 2 Institute for Research in School Education, Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic 3 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic 4 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic Correspondence Světlana Hanušová, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Poříčí 9, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic. Email: hanusova@ped.muni.cz Funding information Grantová Agentura České Republiky, Grant/ Award Number: GA15 12956S Abstract The current paper presents the results of the first research study of drop-out intentions of novice teachers in the Czech Republic. The study focuses on the reported satisfaction of novice teachers in primary and lower secondary schools with external factors that influence their socialisation and that can be seen as predictors of novice teachers' decision to stay in their current school. In the paper we present the results of quantitative research conducted in 2015–2017. Our main findings include the key significance of factors at the school level, especially the influence of school cul- ture and climate, cooperation with colleagues and leader- ship. We conclude that in the Czech context teachers tend to stay in schools provided that they work in a well-func- tioning school, with cooperative colleagues and good head teachers.