In September 2023, in Slovakia a curriculum reform of primary and secondary schools, announced by the Ministry of Education, Research, Development and Youth of the Slovak Republic in 2020, has entered in its pilot phase. In this phase first schools have started to teach according the new State Educational Programs, while from September 2026 all schools are expected to teach according to them. The paper presents the selected results of a cross-sectional survey research carried out in three regions of Slovakia with the aim to explore the opinions of parents on the technology curriculum. In each of the three selected regions two urban and two rural schools were involved in the survey research, i.e. parents of pupils attending the given schools were asked which thematic units in their opinion should be taught in technology classes. The collected data were analysed for the whole sample of the respondents, without any differentiation, and in dependence on the segmentation factors of the respondents, which were gender of their children (daughter or son, i.e. male or female) and affiliation of their children to the school they attended (rural school – urban school). The analyses were performed to find out possible significant differences among the results recorded for each of these sub-groups in dependence on the stated segmentation factors.
Keyword(s) : curriculum reform
The Curriculum Reform as a Means to Upgrade Technology Education at Lower Secondary Schools in Slovakia
In Slovakia, various initiatives aimed at supporting technical or polytechnic education at lower secondary schools (ISCED 2) were carried out. Despite the efforts made, these initiatives did not have a positive effect on increasing the interest of pupils in studying at technical vocational schools (ISCED 3). The curriculum plays a significant role in this. The Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sports of the Slovak Republic is currently preparing a curriculum reform plan for primary and secondary levels of education (ISCED 1-3). The paper presents the results of a survey focused on assessing the curricular content of the school subject technology from pupils’ point of view.
The research survey was carried out with a sample of 101 pupils. To collect research data, a questionnaire was used. The key items of the questionnaire were focused on finding out pupils’ favourite subjects, favourite topics or activities, the impact of teaching technology on pupils’ professional orientation, and their expectations in connection with technically-oriented subjects taught at secondary schools.
It has been found out that pupils’ attitudes to the school subject technology is significantly negative. However, this statement has to be considered not only in relation to the content of the subject but also in relation to the way in which the subject is taught at schools. The pupils express an interest in practical activities during which they can produce various objects or products. When the pupils were asked to evaluate the subject using a traditional classification scale 1 (excellent) – 5 (fail/insufficient), only four pupils rated technology with the grade 1, while up to 11 pupils evaluated the discipline by the grade 5. The final (average) grade of the subject was 3.