Evaluation of Awareness and Implementation of Environmental Education in Teachers of Secondary Vocational Schools

Abstract

Environmental education has its own specific significance at secondary vocational schools if it is directed to the future professional orientation of graduates. For the graduates of vocational schools with a focus on agriculture, forestry and related fields, the rate of professional responsibility towards the environment is high. General framework of environmental issues of vocational education is declared in so called Framework Educational Programme by the contents of the cross-curricular theme "The Human Being and the Environment". The aim of the paper is to evaluate teachers' awareness and the implementation of the environmental education programme at their schools and to specify competencies for areas of implementation of environmental education at vocational schools with a focus on agriculture, forestry and related fields of study. The target group consisted of teachers who were completing their qualification as a part of complementary pedagogical studies to become teachers at secondary vocational schools. To explore the outlined issues a questionnaire survey was conducted in the academic years 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. The results of the survey have been used to innovate the contents of the subject Environmental Education which is included in the curriculum of the study programme Specialization in Pedagogy for the fields of study focused on "Teaching of Vocational Subjects at Secondary Vocational Schools and Training Institutions" and "Teaching of Practical Vocational Training", namely to clarify particular pedagogical categories in relation to environmental propaedeutics and in relation to the significance and objectives of environmental education.