| Description |
Initial vocational education is an important part of the educational system of the Czech Republic (Marinič & Pecina, 2021). As the Czech Republic has a long-term significantly higher proportion of pupils (approximately 70%) in secondary vocational education than in other EU countries, teachers of vocational education play an important role in shaping the education of future generations of graduates heading for the labour market. The form of the educational process is influenced by curricular documents, especially strategies for the development of the educational system in their current form. In the Czech Republic, it is the so-called Strategy 2030+ (MEYS, 2020), which replaced the previous Strategy 2020 (MEYS, 2014) and before it the so-called White Paper (MEYS, 2001). The Strategy 2030+ is a relatively robust document that focuses on a wide range of educational policies. In the context of the paper, however, we are particularly interested in the focus declared by the strategic line "support for pedagogical staff" and "increasing professional capacity, trust and mutual cooperation". These strategic lines thus focus on the areas of comprehensive and systematic professional training of teachers and support for the pedagogical work of teachers and schools, including the reduction of the non-pedagogical burden of teachers and schools. This should create the conditions for further professional development of teachers' competencies. And it is the question of teachers' competencies and the possibility of their development in the last two years that is the focus of the presented paper. To identify teachers' approaches to the development of their competencies, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 120 teachers at 40 secondary vocational schools from all over the Czech Republic, with different education and different length of teaching experience. In the paper, based on the answers from the questionnaire survey, we try to convey the view of the teachers themselves, focused on the fields of gastronomy, tourism and hospitality, on the development of their competencies. We are therefore looking for an answer to the research question: How do VET teachers in their respective fields approach the developing of their pedagogical and professional competencies in the context of the current situation in education? As this is quantitative pedagogical research, the data are processed through descriptive statistics and the results obtained are related to the outlined directions of the Strategy 2023+, specifically in the field of support for teachers and increasing professional capacity, trust and cooperation. The results of a survey of teachers point to the fact that 89.2% of teachers have attended some form of training for teachers in the last two years. The most prominent were professional workshops (87 respondents), courses in pedagogy or psychology (58) and courses in the use of ICT in teaching (44). Teachers were most often trained in activating teaching methods (48 respondents) and motivational supportive teaching methods (41), but also in digital competences (46) or technical and didactic skills in leading online teaching (50). This focus, in connection with the evaluation of one's own digital competencies as sufficient (80% of respondents) or even excellent (12.5%), indicates the need for their continuous development. Professional competencies, in the form of monitoring the current development of the field and subsequent education, are developed by almost all teachers (tourism: 86.1%; hospitality: 87.7%; gastronomy: 96.4%). Teachers feel the support of the school management in developing their competencies (80% of respondents).
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