Abstract:

As shown by many professional discussions, nowadays in Slovakia we see great dissatisfaction with the conditions for the performance of the teaching profession. This problem is still being unable to successfully manage because existing solutions do not respect all aspects of diversity management. That is because they very significantly interfere with the work of teaching staff and their constant overlooking can not lead to effective and systematic solution of the problem, as well as to its subsequent implementation. For this reason, the aim of this paper is not only to identify but also to look for causes of dissatisfaction of teachers from headmasters point of view, who besides their managerial duties also carry out educational activities. Whereas this issue is current in other neighboring countries, we decided to publish found facts under partial research conducted in Slovakia. Results are a partial outcome of the international scientific research project called Diversity management, comparison, the best practices of Visegrad countries no. 21110193, solved by the Visegrad Fund. Its main objective was to compare best practice in the Visegrad countries in cooperation with Universities in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.
The structure of the paper is conceived to provide the reader with comprehensive information about the reasons of the solved problem. The main research method was qualitative analysis performed by the Focus Group Interview method, which allowed us to reveal the attitudes and opinions of headmasters of primary and secondary schools to address some of the key areas of diversity management. Group discussions were focused mainly on the detecting the causes of the increasing age average of teachers; solving the problem of high feminization of teaching staff; issues of acceptance, respectively. no acceptance members of other ethnic groups, sexual orientation and physically disabled colleagues – teachers; low teacher status in Slovakia and more.
Also, we were interested on how and if the school headmasters monitor the application of their graduates in the labor market and their views on the mutual competition between schools. All topics discussed were aimed at finding solutions in term of 5 years. It can be stated that the results of the interviews revealed many, yet underestimated determinants of conditions for performing the teaching profession. For illustration we suggest that a common reason of resignation of junior teachers is their unprepareness to solve conflict situations in practice. The reason for this is according to panelists, is insufficient undergraduate preparation for the teaching profession, which underrepresented is within Master curriculum. Striking was also relatively frequent non-acceptance of teachers – colleagues with another sexual orientation, respectively. nationality. The panellists also suggested accented humanistic approaches in preparation for the teaching profession. A common design solutions were also psychological tests, which according to most panelists, every teacher should attend before completing University studies. The paper conclusion provides a summary of all the resulting findings and qualitative analysis. Readers have the opportunity to find out recommendations that would change the current situation in favor of raising the status of the teaching profession in Slovakia.

Keywords:

Diversity management, School principals, Feminization, Teacher´s status, Focus group, Interview.