Abstract:

The school curriculum in Slovakia has been reformed since 2008. The reform includes a change of pedagogical orientation from the subject and knowledge about it to the development of key competences of pupils. The change is expected to increase pupils’ ability to perform various work activities and to cope with rapid changes in social, working and personal life. The effect of this kind of education should be an individual able to adapt to the changing needs of the labour market. Curriculum priorities are considered insufficient by the authors of this paper. It is not enough to acquire the competence for the work, but it is also necessary to make the subject of school education a question of the sense of an activity and to cultivate pupils’ sensibility towards inner attitudes — i.e., virtues. The aim of the paper is to compare the concept of competence with the ethical concept of virtue and to find out whether the virtue as a competence for good life occurs in the state educational program in Slovakia. The methodology consists of analysing the fundamental notions of “competence” and “virtue”. The competence was analysed on the basis of the strategic school documents and curriculum. The main source of virtue analysis was Aquinas’ virtue ethics. The understanding of the meaning of these key notions has allowed the authors to: first, identify and appreciate the importance of virtue for human and social life; second, to examine the concept of virtue in the formulation of the objectives of ethics as a school subject. The result of the inquiry was a summary of the basic differences between competences and virtues. Competences are pupil’s productive abilities because they are oriented to the external result of the action. Virtues are moral abilities of the pupil because they arise in the inner goodness of the person, in his/her will for good and fulfilment. By analysing the objectives of ethics as a school subject in the school education program, we found that it is more about the passing and internationalisation of moral norms. Such a concept of ethics as a school subject does not contribute to the growth of personal fitness for a good life, but rather to the passive adoption of behavioural patterns, expected of the pupil at the social level. The importance of the findings points to the need to reconsider the curriculum priorities and to rethink the objectives of ethics as a school subject. The very goal of education cannot be a person competent for action, but without virtue, which is, without the ability to join activity with the will for good while achieving the meaning of life. Such an education would deprive the pupil of an essential aspect of his/her own development.

Keywords:

Competence, virtue, education, curriculum, ethics.