Title: Blended learning and lifelong learning of teachers in the post-communist society in Slovakia

Authors: Lukáš Bomba; Jarmila Zacharová

Addresses: University of Zilina, Univerzitna 8215/1, Zilina, Slovakia ' University of Zilina, Univerzitna 8215/1, Zilina, Slovakia

Abstract: Social and economic changes in Slovakia after 1989 and after the Velvet Revolution had their impacts on education, on redefining the functions of school, on changing the nature of education, school computerisation and total modernisation, but also on decrease of teachers' social status and on changing the school funding and long-term underfunding of the Slovak educational system. The article deals with lifelong learning of teachers in Slovakia and the use of blended learning as a means of increasing the teachers' qualification credit as employees. The main line of this article is tracking the lifelong learning of the Slovak teachers in the context of neoliberalism and its influence on education with some implications for teachers. Introducing lifelong learning in its current form is a new phenomenon in Slovakia that comes with capitalisation of education and neoliberalism as the main ideological current in the state policy or school policy.

Keywords: higher education; universities; blended learning; lifelong learning; neoliberal governmentality; teacher training; Slovakia.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCEELL.2014.063103

International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning, 2014 Vol.24 No.3/4, pp.329 - 342

Published online: 19 Jul 2014 *

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