Professional Development of Boarding School Teachers After Initial Education

Abstract

The technologically and scientifically impacted modern society demands a different approach to the acquisition of knowledge, its range and purpose. There is an ever-increasing demand for the integration of modern scientific achievements with educational contents. In order for educators to fulfill these educational demands, it is necessary for them to constantly develop their professional competencies so that they may be capable of expanding their field of expertise and becoming initiators, carriers, and organizers of the developmental processes and changes in education. Initial [undergraduate] education cannot answer everyday societal changes well enough, and with that in mind, it cannot prepare an individual for working effectively. The solution can be seen in permanent [life-long] learning, in the constant professional development (PD in further reading) of educators to be exact, which begins with initial [undergraduate] education and continues with the development of their professional knowledge and skills through different shapes of compulsory development of their professional competencies. In the circles of educators, besides preschool, elementary, and high school teachers, according to specific tasks in the educational framework, there are educators who work in boarding schools. Although this group is comprised of a smaller number of educators, it is equally important for boarding school teachers to continually develop their professional competencies. In the theoretical framework of the paper, an analysis of the problem of their PD will be made, while the empirical chapter of the paper speaks about the opinions of boarding school teachers, according to their PD