Reshaping the Focus of Vocational and Teacher Education in Lithuania
Abstract:
Lithuania as transition country is undergoing "double speed changes" in political, economical and social life. "First speed" is related with changes from centralized economy to market economy. "Second speed" - with parallel and permanent progress of science and technologies and as result of it - permanent changes of labor market needs. These "double speed changes" create sophisticated, "turbulent" effect of changes, which is very complicated to manage. This also challenges new demands for whole Lithuanian vocational education and training system as well as to vocational teacher education also. The systematic research on Lithuania VET teacher education improvement becomes very important. The answers to the questions "what is a good VET teacher?" and "why such VET teacher is a good?" becomes very important. Research data on contemporary state of art of LT VET teacher professional qualification shows a big demand of Lithuanian VET teachers for pedagogical qualification. Therefore, in the presentation would be discussed:
- Contemporary state art of VET TE in Lithuania;
- Contemporary state of art of pedagogical as well as vocational qualification of LT vocational teachers;
- Competence based professional standard of vocational teacher and it structure, designed on the bases of lifelong learning paradigm;
- New role of VET school in competence based VET TE;
- New quality of interaction between teacher training institution and VET school in initial and continues professional development of VET teachers;
- Main approaches,
principles and parameters of new Lithuania VET TE strategy.
Author:
Kestutis Pukelis