Challenges of the Formation of the Military Professional at the University of Defence

Higher education for military professionals is provided by the University of Defence, the only military university in the Czech Republic. Like other universities, it has to deal with students who drop out of their studies. Retrospectively collected data on the withdrawals from the study were statistically analyzed using survival an alysis methods to assess student dropout rates. With the five-year records, we quantified the effects of two faculties and five classes, which showed that the risk of dropping out is higher for students in technical fields (approximately by 18%). On the ot her hand, the creation of support groups led to a more gradual dropout rate compared to the previous years without these groups (approximately by 25%). We believe that these results will help the academics and commanders guide students as they become military professionals.