International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
The accreditation, as the state verification of the competence of an educational institution, is granted by the
Ministry of Education on the basis of the approval by its Accreditation Commission. The accreditation is
conditional on the relevant professional educational orientation of the institution, project submitted by this
institution, which must meet all requirements, appropriate educational documentation of the educational activity,
qualified staffing and the appropriate material and technical facilities of this institution. The accreditation is
granted for five years. Graduates from accredited further education courses are issued certificates by the
respective educational institution, which are valid on the whole territory of Slovakia. The expenditures for the
further education are covered partially by participants themselves and partially from the funds of employers,
from special-purpose subsidies, from the budget of the Centre of Labour (only for accredited retraining
education), from budgets of local self-administration, from contributions by foundations and from other sources.
Despite strong progress in reforming VET since 2008 in Slovakia two weak points have remained
unaddressed and must be therefore permanently stressed:
- Low investment in education causes lower quality of equipment and low attractiveness of IVET for young
professionals to become teachers or trainers. Thus, even best shaped qualification documents are insufficient
provided a quality training staff is not available.
- Low investment in VET research and labour market analyses hampers understanding
of labour market needs. Data on transition of graduates into work and national
employers' surveys are the most urgently missing tools to identify skills needs and skill gaps at workplace
level. (CEDEFOP, 2012, p. 40)
General country analysis
European countries have some similarities and differences as well. Each country has the own economic and
political development, but many of them, as was said earlier, have the same actual problem – high level youth
unemployment rate. This phenomenon is intensified especially after 2008, when the economic crisis began and
continues to this day. The following table provides information about the youth unemployment rate in the
partner countries of the project.
Table 1: Youth unemployment rate of each partner´s country (Entangle R6 country report WP2, 2013, p. 10)
Country 2010 2011 2012
Cyprus 16,6 22,4 27,8
Netherland 8,7 7,6 9,5
Lithuania 35,3 32,2 26,4
Slovakia 33,9 33,5 34
Spain 41,6 46,4 53,2
The basic pillar VET trainings are clearly reducing youth unemployment.
Entrepreneurship is option how to overcome the contemporary situation; it is a necessary condition for
economic growth and development. Modern states converge in treating entrepreneurship as a key economic
resource. But entrepreneurship is especially important in the period of structural change and changing global
division of labour. Entrepreneurship according to the current demands is important part of education and
especially of vocational education. There is a common need to develop and update VET-teachers’ qualifications
and competences in the EU. There are many reasons, for example: globalization meaning that industries and
services need new abilities to meet competition inside and outside the EU; the population in the EU is ageing;
the changing vocational qualifications; the pool of unskilled or semi-skilled labour and their willingness to learn
new skills are challenging.
VET teachers
The changing nature of the VET practitioner and the constant evolution of the VET sector itself poses
challenges to those involved in the many forms of VET teacher preparation in Slovakia. The quality and
attention to learning and teaching integral to the professional development of these VET trainee teachers impacts
on how they in turn will work with their own students. A range of models are employed to train VET teachers.
UNESCO (2001) recommended that vocational teachers should be of the same status as other teachers, and that
their preparation for teaching should be over three years.
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