How to support technology education: What does the practice in Slovakia show

In 2008 in Slovakia a curricula reform was introduced into the primary and secondary schools. In terms of technology education on the one hand the reform cut the number of compulsory lessons devoted to technology education but on the other hand it provided schools large possibilities to support technology education through additional so-called disposable lessons, which they might incorporate in their School Education Programmes. The paper presents some main results of a qualitative analysis which was carried out to find the consequences of the curricula reform on the technology education carried out in practice in primary and lower secondary schools (ISCED 2). The aim of the research was to find out to which level the schools have used the possibility to increase the number of lessons devoted to technology education, what were the reasons for schools that influenced their decision to increase the number of the lessons devoted to technology education, as well as what were the main reasons or barriers why they did not incorporate in their School Education Programmes additional hours or subjects related to the technology education.