Introduction of a Quality Management System for Vocational Education and Training in Slovakia

Abstract

The issue of the quality of vocational education, school, teaching and learning of students should be in the interests of all participants in the education process. The quality of secondary school is the critical element in enhancing the attractiveness of vocational education in Slovakia. Finding an offcial scale that would provide such a information in Slovakia is unfortunately impossible. There is no system for evaluating the quality of vocational education and training (VET) at vocational schools. There are no clearly defined criterias, rules or any standards. Speaking of an assessing the level of quality of vocational education on the base of existing outcomes in formal education such as monitoring, final exams, graduation exams is resulting in one-sided evaluation and does not address the systematic coherence and complexivity of this issue. An essential step os to create a functional system of evaluation of VET in Slovakia. The article describes importance of VET which can play a central role in preparing young people for work, developing the skills of adults and responding to the labour market needs of the economy and presents the project Model of the quality evaluation of vocational education and training at secondary vocational schools in Slovakia that is currently ongoing on many secondary vocational schools in western Slovakia and Austria. The aim of the project is to develop and apply an open, flexible and adaptable quality management system. The article not only presents indicators for evaluation but also the way how can be evaluated each of them. The effort of this project is also to create specialized portal with support services that provide transparent, clear and specific information from this area of interest. The introduction of the evaluation framework, the selection of indicators that take established criteria into consideration and assembling of the scale is therefore more than relevant and required.