Abstract:

There is no doubt that the conception of teacher education significantly affects the teaching results at all types of schools. The pre-service and in-service science teachers’ education in the Czech Republic has a long tradition. Teachers for lower and upper secondary education were, since 1950‘s, prepared with 5-year university study programmes, in two subjects. The study programme conception was made out of three pasts: development of ideologically-political awareness of the teacher, all-round preparation for their pedagogical activities, and specialized expertise in their subjects and the didactics of those subjects; it was taught according to unified study plans. There was also a unified state system of teacher education following the studies.

In 1990‘s, this conception changed because of the changes in society. Some of faculties started to emphasize mainly the pedagogically-psychological side of the teacher education, some of them emphasized mostly the expert preparation of the future teachers in their subjects – either two or one – in various combinations. The importance of the individual disciplines in the study plans is elevated by their ECTS evaluations. The system for educating the in-service teachers stops working because the institutions that used to provide it are being eliminated. At the beginning of the 21st century, it‘s clear that both parts of the education of future teachers, subject/subject didactics, and pedagogy/psychology, must be balanced. The standards of the Ministry of Education give the mandatory rules for teacher preparation conception.

But at the same time, in 2005–2010, the work began on a significant change in teacher preparation, because of the acceptance of the Bologna Declaration. Today, all universities run the preparation of teachers in structured study programmes – three-year bachelor programme and two-year master programme. Although the conception of teacher education corresponding to the standards of Ministry of Education follows the given proportion of the individual components of teacher preparation, this study system doesn‘t separate them in a suitable way. The subject preparation is mainly in the bachelor study and pedagogically-psychological preparation, as well as the subject didactics, is mostly in the magisterial study. The in-service teachers´ education was gradually renewed, but it is still non-systemic and uncoordinated.

This contribution is concerned about the characteristics of education concepts for pre-service and in-service teachers in the Czech Republic, about stating their positive and negative sides and about stating the optimal teacher education conception rooted in historical experience and the analysis of teacher education systems in selected EU countries. We are mainly going to make use of the results of a questionnaire survey that was realized throughout EU countries as a part of the projects ECTN in 2010-2016. This results shows, that the conception of pre-service and in-service teacher education are, under the influence of the EU, coming together in a way; they also show the same problems. This is mainly the result of the structured study programmes. While the first degree of the study creates a science expert, the second degree only puts emphasis on the pedagogical part of the teaching profession. Here, therefore, it is necessary to seek solutions of how to realize the optimal conception of teachers’ education.

Keywords:

Pre-service and in-service science teachers´ education, bachelor study programmes, master study programmes, questionnaire survey.