International Teacher Education Conference 2014 1

International Teacher Education Conference 2014
Evaluation of the teaching profession in our region, funding of schools, the actual composition of activities of
teachers (teaching versus administration), significantly influence the composition of the teaching staff as well as
the methods and quality of the educational process. The result of all these factors is a significant change in the
pattern and level of primary and secondary education, underlined by the historical decline in science and
mathematics students in the last decade; see studies by TIMSS, FIMS, SIMS, PISA and others [3].
The changing profile of the high school graduate and especially reduced numeracy skills makes higher
education difficult for both teacher and student. Although society in general knows about the phenomenon of
poor quality primary and secondary education becoming fully apparent at the highest levels of education,
nothing fundamental is being done about it.
Why Study Technical Subjects?
Why even study engineering, considering its difficulty – made more difficult by inadequate numeracy?
At best, it is a real interest in, or even a predilection for, technology and science in general. In the worst case -
and unfortunately prevalent - this is due to non-acceptance in other, economically more lucrative fields.
This is created by a very distinctive composition of students?. There is an ever shrinking group of students
who crave for knowledge and for obtaining it at a high level and who are willing and able to make even
extensive effort. The second group consists of students who still have the ability to absorb the material at an
appropriate level, and meet the necessary conditions for this necessary analytical and logical thinking. Due to the
deficiency of theoretical knowledge working with this group is difficult, but it is worth it. Currently, however, a
third group is beginning to dominate, for which teaching technical subjects in the traditional sense is impossible.
The motivation for their study is to obtain a university degree with the lowest possible effort. Surely you cannot
deny this group of students their commitment and ability to memorizing the curriculum and to obtaining certain
encyclopedic knowledge. Their knowledge is however superficial without a deeper insight of engineering
principles. Studying a technical subject, in a way that is still remembered by today's generation in their forties,
by this group would be impossible. It would mean nowadays an unbearable loss of students and studies
completed by a fraction of the current number of graduates. However, we have a system where universities are
evaluated by the number of students and not for their quality, which is economically totally unacceptable. To
avoid this - and so that the financing of universities will not collapse, faculty managers are making drastic
reductions to the requirements for students. The rate of adaptation to the third (weakest) group of students
depends on both the courage and the conscience of the governing body of the faculty or school, and on the
pressure from outside. The current shortage of technical staff in the region forces industrial plants to judge
universities according to the number of graduates, rather than their quality. Industry itself then pushes towards
reducing the level of education - usually presented as a "need to popularize the educational process" [4].
Large companies are themselves able to provide training in the desired scientific field using a variety of
training programs, training and business schools. Their requirements on the graduate profile is changing – it is
important for them to acquire more superficial general knowledge, teamwork ability, language skills, work
habits, etc. The ability of analytical thinking in solving technical problems has taken a back seat to manual
control capabilities of CFD, FEF, CAD and so on.
To what extent this is a short-sighted attitude, or whether it is an inevitable trend, which the middle and older
generation of teachers simply must come to terms with, time will tell. The opinion of the author of this article is
that certainly the teaching of many scientific disciplines can be moved into corporate training. However, there is
a whole range of knowledge (mainly theoretical), which it is necessary to absorb during studies at university.
Corporate training subsequently will contribute to the deepening of practical skills, including the application of
theoretical knowledge in practice, but it is very difficult here to supplement the neglected engineering
knowledge base.
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