IMPROVING COMPETENCE OF PEDAGOGICAL STAFF AS AN INDICATOR OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEW UKRAINIAN SCHOOL REFORM

Abstract

The concept of reforming general secondary education «New Ukrainian School» defines a number of components that focus on the activities of a contemporary teacher, namely: a motivated teacher who has freedom for creativity and professional development. This component draws attention to the need for the teachers to constantly improve their professional level. This involves improving the competencies acquired during professional higher / pre-higher education and obtaining new competencies, required due to the development of society and modernization of education. Thus, society currently expects teachers to understand the four components of the educational process: what to teach; whom to teach; how to teach and how those who are taught learn. Society’s expectations become reality through the changes caused by the reform of the general secondary education, namely in relation to postgraduate pedagogical education of teachers. The article considers the definition of «postgraduate pedagogical education» and the transformation of approaches to its implementation in regulations, for example, the Procedure for in-service training states that the teacher can choose at their discretion the types and areas of in-service training and service providers for advanced training. To investigate how the teachers use the opportunities provided by the state to improve their professional level, the SSI «Institute of Educational Analytics» has been monitoring the process of implementing the reform of the New Ukrainian School for three years in a row. The group of questions in the questionnaires for teachers participating in the framework of the NUS reform concerned their professional development. The survey was conducted in May-June 2021 among a representative sample of teachers, involving 2217 respondents. The obtained statistics gave grounds to say that primary school teachers use the opportunities provided to them to improve their professional level, which indirectly indicates their desire to successfully implement the reform of the New Ukrainian School.