On teaching human rights at secondary schools in Slovak Republic

The author describes the research of human rights teaching at secondary schools in the Slovak Republic. The aim of the research was to find out the teacher’s views and their attitudes towards the problems of human rights teaching at secondary schools. The research sample was formed by 664 teachers of secondary schools in the East Slovakia region. The questionnaire was the main research method. The author verified 11 hypotheses that confirmed the unsatisfactory level of human rights teaching at secondary schools. The lack of information on human rights teaching, as well as low motivation of teachers and lack of leaching aids etc. have caused that the problems of human rights have been presented at lessons sporadically, as well as extracurricular activities have been organized only in a few isolated cases. The author presents the recommendations how to increase the effectiveness of human rights teaching at secondary schools. The author considers the creating of a new theory of education based on the principles of humanity and democracy as fundamental precondition for an incerease in the effectiveness of human rights teaching.