Autonomy and responsibility in the new programmes of secondary vocational education and training

Breda Zupanc

Summary:  In Slovene secondary schools the autonomy is a continuous process, which is being developed, implemented and realised by means of school curriculum. School curriculum is strategic document of a school which is prepared by a team of teachers on the basis of the National Curriculum. The latter is prepared on the basis of the Starting points for curriculum development in lower and upper secondary vocational education and training and in secondary technical education (2001). The employers from the local area also need to be drawn into cooperation because the aims of the national corriculum cannot be operationalised without them. The team of teachers is autonomous and fully responsible for the allocation of the hours to individual programme units. Open curriculum (20% of the hours) is based on the needs of the local area. The assessment plan is created on the basis of the school curriculum the the team of teachers and it contains the activities planned by the teachers and expert workers of the school. These activities are supposed the help them achieve the set goals as well as help them assess knowledge and skills. The teachers have to use their professional knowledge to decide how to assess competences, and/or measure the progress of individual students