The present master's thesis examines possible improvements to the existing systemic elements of the basic education in Slovenia. The main interest lay in the quality of the compulsory and extended primary school syllabus, other organizational and pedagogical components, as well as potential changes related to them. The thesis focused on the quality of elective subject. The international PISA survey found, inter alia, that with regard to the financial literacy assessment, Slovenian students performed much below the OECD average, therefore this topic could be considered for inclusion as an independent elective subject.
Since reading literacy is a key competence with a strong impact on social and work integration, it will need to be determined how best to improve reading literacy skills in the future. The right mechanisms need to be applied to reduce the variation in reading literacy performance between boys and girls, and to close the gap with other countries. The choice of the right mechanisms is largely influenced by social and gender differences that affect the final results. Many results point to the fact that the speech of infants, toddlers and children of early age is a good indicator of reading literacy, which leads to the pertinent question wheather children's speech competence is being promoted early enough.
The European Reference Framework of Key Competences for Lifelong Learning suggests that young people should be helped to develop social and civic competences, which are defined by knowledge, skills and attitudes, during their basic education. To this aim, the subject of Civic and Homeland Education and Ethics was included in the curriculum, which is being taught to the Slovenian 7th and 8th grade pupils. Our research has found a difference between the intended and achieved curriculum. The curriculum expects teachers to follow a certain set of goals and content, but research has shown civic education to be one of the areas where the differences between the officially intended curricula and their actual implementation in the classroom are the most significant.
The research has also revealed that most teachers believe upskilling to be important. We found that in Slovenia several further education and training programmes are beingoffered to the education staff.
All our findings may give rise to further reflection on how to plan changes and approaches in a basic education system. The analysis will help experts and the professional public interested in the basic education guidelines, and can serve to support teachers' self-evaluation and pedagogical training.
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