|
The purpose of this thesis is to probe into the contexts that lead to the demand of continuing education for senior and vocational high school subject teachers, as well as the reasons that hinder them from pursuing further skills and more advanced knowledge. The research adopts qualitative methods to investigate the teachers’ experiences and motions in both teaching and studying. Targeting senior and vocational high school subject teachers with seniority over 6 six years, the search uses in-depth interviews to probe into teachers’ professional as well as personal lives, whil summing up and verifying teachers’ demands for and barriers to continuing education with the method of focus group.
The first finding shows that the training for required knowledge and skills for these teachers are extremely insufficient. This brought a lot of pressure of them once entered the teaching job. The second major finding is that the range of Food and Beverage education is so broad that the teachers inevitably need to receive further training. Besides, they also need to learn knowledge of new fields which is changed from time to time. Moreover, the senior and vocational education has undergone serious transitions, among which include being transformed to comprehensive high schools, adopting academic year credit systemr, a new curriculum standard, and the tendency for students to pursue higher education rather than to enter job markets after graduation, etc. Teaching hours for the teachers are forcedly reduced while subjects to teach has increased. All these has forced them to take on more training for other specialty areas. They have pressing demands for continuing education. However, they have encountered many problems in pursuing continuing education, and among the problems are the mismatch between their demands and available offers, the limit of time and the place where the courses are offered, and all kinds of costs associated with the continuing education. These teachers therefore often have difficulties to adapt to the system requirement. Some consider for early retirement, others think of quit, and still others may give up the subject of Food & Beverage. Such phenomena should be taken cautiously for the Food and Beverage education.
|