Continuing Professional Development in ICT for Primary School Teachers, Reflections and Issues

Abstract

With regard to the main directions of the education policy of the Czech Republic 2030+ , it is clear that the development of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the society brings the necessity to detect the specifics of the teaching profession in the context of current conditions at school. In the future, education should be more integrated with the digital world and respond to technological developments. The upcoming changes will affect virtually all teachers. Computers should be used in the classroom of other subjects, and this may make teachers unwilling to change their practices. Another obstacle to the modernization of teaching is also the lack of school equipment. The Czech School Inspection Authority states that only 9.5% of big primary schools meet the standards for digital education. In small primary schools, it is less than five percent. The aim of our research is to detect, what the real situation is like in the area of professional preparedness in teaching ICT subjects at different types of school with special attention to the perception of the situation by professional teachers. The results of the research confirmed that although teachers have support at school, most of them lack Continuing Professional Development both in the methodology of teaching ICT subjects and in the field of professional ICT subjects. Teachers are rather dissatisfied with the current offer of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and they would welcome corresponding support.