Framework Educational Programmes – A Long-term Task

The article offers a detailed characterisation of the Framework Education Programme for Basic Education and the Framework Education Programme for Gymnasium (Academic Secondary School) Education. In her evaluation the author is first and foremost concerned to analyse certain positive and progressive premises on which both the documents are based. The essential issue is that of the content of education and not the organisational structure of the educational system. The idea of framework educational programmes as the basis for the creation of specific educational programmes by each school is connected to the premise that schools will become more autonomous. In this way the principle of democratisation is being applied in education. The school is given more freedom, but at the same time it has to take more responsibility for its own decisions. Another important conceptual feature is the accent on the results of teaching, capacity to apply what is leant and to exploit it in practice. The documents seeks to emphasise synthesis, interdisciplinary connections, and a degree of integration of knowledge. At the same time the author points out a number of problems and open questions. Her main criticism is directed against the ways in which the material was prepared. There was insufficient long-term dialogue between the authors of the document and the wider specialist and lay public. Moreover, a number of concepts central to the issue such as basic general education, academic high-school education, and competences undoubtedly required deeper elucidation in the materials. In the author‘s view there are also shortcomings in the educational theory, which devotes little attention to tackling the problem of changes in the content of education from the perspectives of the information and knowledge society and the globalising trends of our time. She argues that the realisation of the school programmes places huge demands on schools and on the pedagogic thinking through of the materials by teachers. In the conclusion to the article she points out that the time allowed for the creation of the school educational programmes is too short, and formulates her own ideas on the phases that ought to lead from the theoretical preparation of the documents to their implementation in practice.