Abstract:

The issue of quality of teachers and their professionalization is one of the key questions of educational systems in the global context. In the society where education and learning should be the source of its prosperity and development (the strategy for the European Union declared by the Council of Europe in Lisbon in 2000, and taken over into the Copenhagen Declaration), a teacher becomes their main representative. The current status and quality of teachers in Slovakia, however, do not respond to demanding requirements of learning and information society posing hard claims on teachers' performance (they have to be managers, consultants, innovators, creative employees), i.e. teachers should acquire new professional competences which have to be identified and assessed.

In connection with this task the research team from Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra (Slovakia) has developed a 4-year national research project with the title Evaluation of Teachers' Competences, the activities of which started from the 1 July 2015.

The priority aim of the project is the identification of a general set of criteria and related evaluation tools. The designed evaluation concept of criteria and tools for teachers' evaluation will be interconnected with their professional competences as well as with career positions.

The intention of the project reflects the current trends and needs for the objective evaluation of teachers at various periods of their career. The project is based on the research results achieved in various projects and on international experience. The significance of the project means determining not only the quantification of measurement indicators but first of all the design of a creative evaluation mechanism of teachers' competences. Such a model of evaluation does not include a checking approach only, but also stimulation elements for creative self-reflection and self-presentation of teachers.
Analysis of stakeholders' needs related to tools for teachers' competences evaluation is considered to be the starting point of the project. Another aim is the analysis of analogical tools used abroad and possibilities of their transformation in the conditions of Slovak school system. The intention of the project research team in order to develop the set of tools for evaluation of teachers' professional competences is to accept their three basic dimensions: competences related to learner, competences related to the educational process and competences related to professional self-development of teachers. The development of the system of evaluation tools will take into consideration the potential of professional performance – knowledge, skills and attitudes as basic components forming different competence areas. The designed evaluation tools will subsequently be piloted and on the basis of their real functioning in school practice they will be corrected and modified.

The absence of evaluation tools for teachers' professional competences and quality and qualified performance of their pedagogical activities sets demanding challenges for the project team members, first of all with respect to the real state of education and upbringing, which the project research team is currently mapping by means of a questionnaire research on national level. Partial results of this research will be presented at the end of the paper.