Abstract:

The Hungarian educational system has been developing complex systems to support the educational system for decades. Before the new millennium alternative pedagogical approaches and school experiments developed their own complex systems, however, due to the growing support of the European Union, the past few years can be characterised by developing competence-based pedagogical systems and integrating them into the educational system.

Within the framework of the poster session we are discussing a research following an assessment of a complex development programme. The educational programme was developed in six areas with the involvement of 55 institutions, in lower primary and upper primary, and in the areas of complex art education, science education, eco-school and practical life skills. Our research consists of two parts: first of all, we have investigated the circumstances of development of educational programmes, the impact of the programmes on teachers and students, as well as the difficulties of adapting applied pedagogical methods. The other focus of the research is the study of implementation possibilities of elaborated educational programmes for the institutions not involved in the development process.

We have used both quantitative and qualitative methods in our research. Heads of a total of 451 primary and secondary schools have been interviewed in the context of an online questionnaire. Furthermore, we have completed 52 personal and 12 focus group interviews with educators and heads of institutions. We have included representatives of institutions both involved and not involved in the development project.

One of the results of the research, besides the fact that there were numerous obstacles to the adaptation, was that the majority of the institutions continued the programme at the end of the development. From the point of view of disseminating the development it was a positive experience that not only those educators who participated in the project were involved in it, but a wider circle. All this led us to conclude that in the majority of the institutions it is possible to find those teachers, who will become the motors of the development and who are also able to involve other educators.

The largest impediments to the implementation and horizontal spreading of elaborated methods are teachers' burnout and overload and lack of information. Based on the experience from the interviews, the greatest achievements of the programmes are the following: an improved communication within the institution; teachers becoming more open not only towards the students, but also towards each other; and the improvement of teacher-student relationships. Experts monitoring the project reported growing enthusiasm and pro-active attitude on the students' part.
The presenter is a researches-analyst for Hungarian Institute for Educational Research and Development, and a student of the University of Pécs ‘Education and Society’ Doctoral School of Education holding a final (pre-degree) certificate. Her research topics are citizen education and school democracy.

Keywords:

Educational programmes, implementation, dissemination, programme development.