Browsing by Subject "opetussuunnitelmamuutos"

Constantly changing work life has placed new demands and challenges on the Finnish education system. The respond to these demands and challenges is a General Upper Secondary reform, which was launched in 2017. The General Upper Secondary reform includes renewal of curriculum, a new Act on General Upper Secondary Education and amending the regulations for the matriculation examination. The reform challenges the traditionally strong autonomous position of teachers as teachers are expected to adopt new ways of working. According to previous studies, the change in teacher work towards a team work culture requires new professional skills from teachers. The purpose of my study was to find out what possible changes and challenges the renewal of curriculum (LOPS) might have on the LOPS-tutors work. Furthermore, I wanted to map out whether the competencies of teachers need to be updated after possible changes in competency requirements. I studied the phenomenon qualitatively by interviewing six LOPS- tutors who, in addition to their teacher work, are working closely on reform of General Upper Secondary Education. The material of this study was collected by semi-structured theme interviews. As a theoretical part, I defined the General Upper Secondary Education in the Finnish context, the history of school development, teachership and teachers work. In addition, I presented the key themes of the reform, the new Act on General Upper Secondary Education and renewal of curriculum. The method of analysis in this study was theory-guided content analysis. According to the results of my study, the teacher work life will change due to the new curriculum (2019). The most essential changes affecting to teachers’ work were increasing amount of team work and interaction, multidisciplinary study modules and the expansion of supervision. Lack of time, concern for well-being of teachers, as well as the structural challenges and bureaucracy emerged as key challenges in the implementation of the reform. Interviewees did not agree on whether teachers would need in-service training. My study supports the view that teachers have a contradictory attitude towards school changes. Although school development was seen as an important and necessary factor, the changes did not appear to be realistic taking into account the everyday reality of the school.