TRAINING EDUCATIONAL STAFF: VISION AND REALITY IN PRESERVICE AND IN-SERVICE TRAINING

Quality assurance in education is a highly discussed topic among experts in education as well as in general public. Ensuring this vital task in schools is closely related to quality of teaching staff, their preservice education and controlled continuous professional development (CPD). The paper presents brief analysis of these two aspects of teacher training in Slovakia. The paper starts with a short description of Slovak legislation aimed at the support of teaching career development at its start. Though it is legally underpinned, the ideas of legislators, providers of training and teachers differ substantially. As the results of our research showed, the ratio of theoretical and practical training in pre-service teacher education is predominantly aimed at the development of subject knowledge they are trained for to teach, whereas both novice teachers as well as their mentors expect more training and advice in solving practical everyday tasks and situations. In the paper the data collected from a questionnaire research on expectations of teachers related to their support, further education and their professional competences development are discussed and analysed.