Abstract:

Education is not simply one of the fundamental human rights, it ensures the possibility of implementation of other human rights. Attending a comprehensive school promotes the development of children’s and young people’s skills so that they would succeed in their professional careers and building social relationships. Quality general education facilitates young people's path to employment and further education. Research shows that poor school experiences and poor integration into school life lead to low educational attainments, lower employment prospects, threats to a successful life, they also increase social exclusion, poverty and criminalization. The COVID 19 pandemic caused, perhaps, the worst learning crisis in the history of the system of education. Nearly two thousand million students in many countries in all the continents started distance learning, which produced a significant impact on the learning environment, the well-being of students and the level and particularity of knowledge. In order to prevent the negative effects of the pandemic on future educational processes, it is necessary to understand what school environment students would like to see, what learning and teaching approaches they consider to be more successful, what shortcomings they have noticed in the system of education. The aim of the present article is to analyse the research conducted in 2019-2021, in which the opinion of young people about their well-being at school, the peculiarities of the educational process and extracurricular activities organized by the school have been clarified.

The study was conducted in three comprehensive schools in different regions in the central part and in the remote regions of the country. The selected schools provide full secondary education and offer a wide range of opportunities for interest-related education. A total of 60 secondary school students (ages 14-18) were interviewed. When selecting the students, the “theoretical sampling” approach was employed. The average duration of each interview was 37 minutes. The interviews were transcribed and coded by using NVivo 12 software. The thematic analysis of interviews was undertaken by using an iterative, inductive approach to the generation of codes and themes guided by the aims and objectives of the analysis.

The results of the research show that young people consider the overall school environment and the implementation of the learning process being equally important. Even in final grades, when young people are oriented towards achieving good learning outcomes, it often is their communication with classmates and teachers that motivates them to attend the school. When defining their specific interests in school subjects, young people indicate that their achievements are always better in the school subjects that they personally find more interesting. In turn, the interest is mainly aroused by a teacher's ability to teach the subject in a clear, logical and interesting way. Many young people state that they have acquired extensive theoretical knowledge in a variety of subjects in their final grades, but lack essential life skills. The research shows that the development of soft skills at school is particularly important for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, as in this case the school is the only institution that can help them enter the labour market and socialize successfully.

Keywords:

General education, young people, school subjects, soft skills, socialization.