Abstract:

Vocational Education and Training (VET), in contrary to academic education, often has been neglected and vocational pedagogy seems to be still under-researched and under-theorized.

In May 2017 Agency for Vocational Education and Training and Adult Education (AVETAE, in Croatian ASOO) of the Republic of Croatia started the project of “Modernization of the system of VET teachers’ professional development” which has finished in December 2019.

The project activities have aimed and resulted in the development of:
1) the guidelines for (vocational training) and continuing professional development (CPD) of vocational teachers developed and finally in
2) a new concept/model of continuing professional development of vocational teachers based on those guidelines.

Teachers of vocational subjects (vocational teachers), generally, do not graduate from faculties whose study programs prepare them for the teaching profession and provide them with the pedagogical competencies. These competencies are acquired through compulsory pedagogical-psychological-methodological education, which gives them the basis to start working in the vocational education system. A large number of vocational teachers associate their professional development with training related to their profession/vocation, while the training in the fields of pedagogy, psychology, didactics and methodology has been unjustifiably neglected.

That was a reason for creating, among others, the guideline for modernization of the vocational teachers CPD in Croatia that refers just to the pedagogical competencies.

The first and very important guideline Strengthening pedagogical and specific methodological competences of teachers focuses on areas of improvement of teacher pedagogical competences, modern teaching methods, preparation, planning and implementation of vocational subjects teaching, classroom management, monitoring, evaluation and assessment of students in vocational subjects, working with students with disabilities, working with gifted students, development of professional content and content for teaching in vocational subjects, ICT competences of teachers for teaching vocational subjects.

The paper aims to present the needs and challenges regarding pedagogical competencies of vocational teachers, the guideline to respond those needs and challenges, and outcomes, beneficiaries and stakeholders, assumptions, risks and recommendations related to the guideline implementation.

Keywords:

Vocational education, vocational teachers, pedagogical competencies, continuing professional development (CPD), guidelines, model.