Basing lifelong learning in kindergarten and primary school. A qualitative study of the perception of kindergarten and primary school teachers

Abstract

Lifelong Learning (LLL) as being an important aim of Hungarian educational policy has already emerged in the field of public education at the turn of the millennium. It also addressed the need to equip children from the earliest stages of life with competences, abilities and attitudes that will enable them to cope with future challenges (Delors, 1996; Majzikné, 1997; European Commision, 1997; Németh, 2005; Farkas, 2013). The research presented in this study was a pilot study of a larger-scale study. In this study kindergarten teachers (N = 43) and primary school teachers (N = 41) were asked about how they support children in certain aspects of lifelong learning. The adaptation of the instrument is based on the work of Klug et al. (2014). In this action-research open-ended questions were used in an online questionnaire. In my research questions, I aimed to compare pedagogues’ views on their work in LLL with the needs of basing LLL according to literature and education policy documents (K1) and also I wanted to find out whether there is a difference between kindergarten and primary school level in this question (K2). Results show that most of the respondents’ views agreed with the content of the literature and the theoretical framework, there were only a few differences (e.g. the importance of developing social competence).