Justifiability of introducing a doctoral study programme in natural and technical sciences

The study programme is intended for candidates with a profound interest in educational issues, who want to use the knowledge and experience gained through their work on the doctoral thesis to improve the quality of their own performance in all aspects of education, life-long learning and research in the field of education, and thus contribute to the successful  advancement of the educational process.

Through this study programme, the teachers are able to attain a higher academic degree in a continuous educational process focussed on specific educational aspects of the selected profession, such as modern learning and teaching methods, introducing e-learning and the e-learning system into the teaching process, diagnosing and solving learning difficulties and developing quality teaching methods, evaluating curricula, preparing new curricula, introducing new methods and media into the education system, providing supervisory work with gifted students and developing the ability to assess knowledge and teaching materials.

The study programme enables the doctoral candidates to meet the advancement criteria in schools and educational institutions, to obtain employment at colleges, higher teacher-education institutions, research institutes, educational services and institutions, Education and Teacher Training Agency, Agency for Vocational Education and Training and Adult Education, and publishing companies issuing school textbooks, and to participate in the advisory bodies for educational issues.

The advantage of this study programme is that it provides an opportunity for individual work with the doctoral candidates, access to teaching bases and an interdisciplinary approach to subject education. Research work is focussed on education in the area of natural or technical sciences, and is executed by integrating the fundamental concepts of educational sciences, professional methods and the fundamental academic discipline. Our experience has shown considerable tendencies of school teachers to collaborate in the research work of our doctoral candidates, since schools are deemed as research platforms or laboratories. The execution of research is carried out with the participation of subject teachers and students.