Švietimas: politika, vadyba, kokybė /Education Policy, Management and Quality

9-28

Authors: Žydronė Smulskienė, Vincentas Lamanauskas

Due to rapid changes in the dynamics of trade market needs, learning and career as life-long proc-esses have become the burning issues of modern society. Knowledge and skills acquired in comprehensive school, college or university cannot guarantee a strong position in the trade market. An important point is the latest information on the situation in different regions of Lithuania. In October - December 2008, a qualitative research was carried out. 29 respondents participated in the survey based on the structural interview providing a possibility of establishing the main conditions for informal adult education including available information, motivation for learning, evaluation in terms of usefulness and an aspect of career changes. Theoretical analysis puts emphasis on the links between informal adult education and career op-portunities. Informal education positively determines a further successful development of a personal career. Learning greatly expands the field of individual opportunities and choices and creates preconditions for making a decision on the development of a personal career. The carried out assessment of the situation on informal education in Kedainiai region disclosed that: • all establishments of informal education in Kedainiai region offer a possibility of and create the required conditions for taking part in the process of life-long learning; • a local database of adult education services (training courses, seminars etc.) and organized pro-grammes provided by different institutions has been established; • the problem of financial support (lack and inadequacy of resources necessary to accomplish the mission established by the institutions of informal education) has been noticed. Obvious positive career changes of the learners who attended the institutions of adult informal edu-cation in Kedainiai region have been established. The majority of the surveyed participants found personal career changes successful and effective. An assessment of positions (opinions and evaluations) taken by the learners reveals that along the factors having impact on motivation such as aspirations, quality-based orientation and intentions of learning, other factors increasing students’ motivation for learning exist: • wish for conforming to constantly changing situation; • intention to remain competitive in the labour market; • wish for having means of support; • doubtful future possibilities. An analysis of employer’s positions (opinions and evaluations) indicates a positive attitude towards informal employees’ education. In seems to be clear that the prestige of informal adult education is in-creasing and the importance of understanding this phenomenon is gaining more weight in society. An assessment of the executives (opinions and evaluations) of the organizations arranging the sessions of informal teaching discloses that informal learning helps with increasing personal and professional competencies, offers the possibility of self-realization, assists in retaining work places, determines the rise of new professional competencies and ensures successful changes in personal careers.

36-41

Authors: Roma Kulikauskienė

The present school feels lack of qualified and competent staff. The success of school activities de-pends on the competence of teachers as they are responsible for the quality of students’ qualification. Due to the absence of any structure of activities, a teacher plays different roles including the development of individual curricula and improvement of school activities. They also work as advisers on the learning process and professional career, the evaluators of internal audit, launch projects, participate in interna-tional events etc. The project concentrates and involves school community, helps teachers with increasing their qualifications and implementing ideas in practice. On the other hand, projects assists in providing possi-bilities of receiving additional financial support and dealing with complex educational problems. An im-portant point is that projects actively involve teachers.

49-56

Authors: Vida Rudelienė

At the theoretical level in the XXI century, two different viewpoints about the education of a person still prevail. One of them approves of the education employing tools, that have an impact on a person - the subject there is the teacher and the objects is the pupil. The other ap-proach accentuates interface between two equivalent subjects – the educator and the educated person. The Lithuanian school is being reformed towards the principles of the educational interaction in conformity with conceptual documents. Thus a realistic contraposition of theoretical approaches and raised educational objectives actually exists. Such kind of contraposition exists not only on a theoretical level, but in practice as well. Therefore, it will be always important to research the educational practice and propose means how to consolidate different principles of the educational interaction in the reformed school. That is the importance of the selected topic. In this paper the educational interaction is understood as a dynamical intercourse system between the educator and the educated person. This intercourse involves pedagogical communication, pedagogical information, pedagogical requirement and pedagogical intercourse (Bitinas, 2006, p 47). The aspect of the research is to show how the quality of the educational interaction is being handled theoretically and practically. It is done orienting school practice towards consolidation of the educational interaction that is typical of the humanistic educational paradigm. The basic quality elements of the educational interaction are components of the educational interaction that solidify the objectives of the education and correspond to peculiarities of a relative age range.