The representation of the lifelong education and learning modality of preschool teachers in kindergartens in the Zagreb County

Odgojitelji se kao stručno osposobljene osobe za rad s djecom rane i predškolske dobi svakodnevno susreću s brojnim izazovima i zahtjevima koji se pred njih stavljaju te u svom odgojno-obrazovnom radu imaju niz uloga. Nove spoznaje u području odgoja i obrazovanja te suvremena slika o djetetu i djetinjstvu zahtijevaju kontinuiran razvoj postojećih te usvajanje novih kompetencija. Kompetencije potrebne za rad stječu se inicijalnim obrazovanjem, no to je tek prva stepenica na putu profesionalnog razvoja odgojitelja koji se nastavlja kroz kontinuirano profesionalno usavršavanje. Cjeloživotno obrazovanje i učenje zakonska su obveza svakog odgojitelja. Stoga se ovim diplomskom radom utvrđuje koji su to oblici cjeloživotnog obrazovanja odgojitelja zastupljeni u dječjim vrtićima Zagrebačke županije. Rad se sastoji od teorijskog i istraživačkog dijela. Teorijski dio obuhvaća odgojiteljsku profesiju, profesionalne kompetencije odgojitelja, povijesni pregled razvoja odgojiteljske struke, te profesionalni razvoj odgojitelja kroz cjeloživotno obrazovanje i učenje, unutar kojeg su navedeni oblici stručnih usavršavanja u Republici Hrvatskoj. U istraživačkom dijelu rada opisuje se istraživanje provedeno putem online anketnog upitnika namijenjenog odgojiteljima iz ustanova ranog i predškolskog odgoja i obrazovanja na području Zagrebačke županije. U anketnom upitniku sudjelovala su 122 ispitanika. Ovim dijelom rada nastojala se utvrditi razlika zastupljenosti pojedinih modaliteta cjeloživotnog obrazovanja između vrtića koji se nalaze u gradu i vrtića koji se nalaze u manjim mjestima te koji su to oblici stručnih usavršavanja zastupljeni kod odgojitelja. Rezultati istraživanja pokazali su što utječe na odabir oblika stručnog usavršavanja, a odgovori ispitanika na postavljeno pitanje otvorenog tipa ukazuju na to da odgojitelji imaju potrebu za stručnim usavršavanjima te koje oblike stručnog usavršavanja smatraju najučinkovitijima, najpotrebnijima i profesionalno najpoticajnijima.Preschool teachers as profesionally trained persons for working with children of early age and preschoolers encounter multiple challenges and requests on a daily basis, and take on many different roles in the period of their teaching. Latest findings concerning early education and the contemporary perception of a child and their childhood are in need of a continuous development of the existing, as well as the acquisition of the new competences. The acquirement of these competences starts with the initial teacher education, which is only the first step in the process of an educators's professional development, and that continues with their vocational training. Lifelong education and learning are a legal obligation of every educator. Therefore, the goal of this master's thesis is to determine the forms of lifelong learnining of educators that are represented in the Zagreb County kindergartens. The thesis consists of a theoretical and a research part. The former entails the teaching profession, the related professional competences, and the professional development of educators throughout the process of lifelong education and learning, which incorporates forms of vocational training in the Republic of Croatia. The latter describes the research conducted using an online survey questionnare aimed at the preschool teachers in kindergartens in the Zagreb County. 122 subjects took part in the survey questionnare. The goal of this part of the thesis was to determine the differences in the representation of individual modalities of lifelong education and learning concerning kindergartens located in the urban area and those located in the suburbs, and also to discover which forms of the vocational training are represented among the educators. The research shows which factors influence the choice of a particular form of vocational training, and the subjects' answers to the open-ended questions indicate their need for vocational training, but also give information about what form of vocational training they consider most efficient, most important, and lastly most profesionally stimulating