10.01.2016 Views

International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

itec2014

itec2014

SHOW MORE
SHOW LESS

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.

<strong>International</strong> <strong>Teacher</strong> <strong>Education</strong> <strong>Conference</strong> <strong>2014</strong><br />

Technical <strong>Education</strong> and its Societal Impact<br />

The states of Central Europe had always been among the world leaders in many industries and this<br />

corresponded to the scope and quality of technical education.<br />

Countries with well-educated technical intelligence can more easily adopt and implement new technologies -<br />

such as with the development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy in Central Europe after the Second World War.<br />

Technical intelligence in addition can easily recognize the risks, specific needs of development, production and<br />

operation of new technologies, including the educational process. Such a society then does not tend to be subject<br />

to hysterical pressure from various activist organizations dismissing anything new because, thanks to their<br />

educational profile, they can form their own opinions. For example, there is the view of environmental parties,<br />

whose efforts to protect the environment are otherwise very much appreciated, but the environmental activists<br />

who are campaigning against nuclear energy are making it difficult for technically educated nations to make<br />

advances in the area of nuclear research. For example, there is the view of environmental parties, whose efforts<br />

to protect the environment are otherwise very much appreciated by society. They are fight against nuclear<br />

energy. In this case it is extremely difficult to fight against environmental parties with technically educated<br />

nations such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland. Recent trends in technical education however are leading<br />

to a certain rearrangement of literacy in certain areas of knowledge. It is only a matter of time before even in<br />

this region the ratio of technically educated people will have evolved so that the new generation of people will<br />

be more easily impressible in technical matters than the current generation.<br />

The Reasons for the Current State of Technical Higher <strong>Education</strong><br />

The causes of this unsatisfactory situation can be seen in the tumultuous changes in the post-communist<br />

period. The reputation and salary of teachers together with continuous under-funding of education ... The current<br />

status of teachers in our society is unprecedented in developed countries. While a teacher at any level of<br />

education in most developed countries has a decent social status and evaluation, in our region the salary of a<br />

teacher in a primary school is only 80% of the average wage. It is easy to imagine the reputation of the teaching<br />

profession in a society when the status of teachers is blindly determined on the basis of their salary. Wages and<br />

evaluation, and thus the status of teachers and engineers in society, are clearly shown in the following table.<br />

Values are relative to the average wage.<br />

The salary of a teacher in a primary school after 15 years of practice reaches about 50% of the average salary<br />

of a college student aged 25-64 , see Fig. 2. Tabulated teacher salary lower than 60% is also in Hungary, Iceland,<br />

Italy.<br />

Fig. 2 Comparison of salary in different positions [%]<br />

(1) Graduate student's salary; (2) Average salary at Czech Republic (100%); (3) <strong>Education</strong> field (all degrees); (4)<br />

Research; (5) Starting salary for teacher at primary school; (6) Average salary for teacher at primary school<br />

(approximately 15 years of experience); (7) Minimal salary at Czech republic<br />

84

Hooray! Your file is uploaded and ready to be published.

Saved successfully!

Ooh no, something went wrong!