Slovak Journal for Educational Sciences / Slovenský časopis pre pedagogické vedy

The process of approximation that is ongoing in varied types of higher education results in degradation of the university learning. In the past, the university well represented its Latin name, universitas, which means the entirety united by singularity; it signified the entirety of knowing. Due to the Bologna Process, the current notion of the university trend promotes quick and narrowly-aimed training for economic practice and the labour market. However, it neglects the cultivation of free and autonomous thinking, human individuality and free science. This process affects also universities in Slovakia, which were established as predominantly regional educational institutions which gradually developed to be full-universities. However, due to the Bologna Process, the traditional principles of universities now fade. Universitas scientiarum signifies entirety of science, universitas universum means relationship to the whole, universitas scholarum et doctorum is a unity of the learners and the teachers, universitas litterarum means unity of educated and moral scholarship and integrity of an individual. In order to keep to these principles, universities should pursue philosophical and scientific reflection of themselves. Being autonomous learning organisations, they should organize pro-university and further education of its employees.

PEDAGOGIKA.SK, 2010, Vol. 1, (No. 4: 263-272)

Key words: the idea of the university, university education, entirety of science, universitas as a principle of entirety, traditional principles of universities, philosophy of education

The paper extends the perspective of educational thinking as far as to epistemological horizons of the contemporary science. Both the near future as well as the present days issues are conceived from the aspects of practical problems which the future generations will have to solve. Therefore, the importance of redefinition of competences is empha-sized, with connotations of acting, effectiveness, and efficiency. New thinking must be developed which will bridge the difference between knowing and acting, and which can be described with attributes such as systemic, complex and technologi-cal. This complex system comprises also ethical, social and environmental catego-ries. The model of competences implies that the distributed knowledge returns back to the community.

PEDAGOGIKA SK 2010, Vol. 1 (No. 3: 223-237)

Key words: school; knowledge; complexity; competences; curriculum; systemic thinking; knowledge society

In the discourse of social sciences the notion of the knowledge-based society appeared in 1970´s in relationship with the works of Peter F. Drucker, and with the concept of post-industrial society of Daniel Bell. In his texts the designation of knowledge-based society and information society are used interchangeably. The focus on studying the characteristics of the information society in the late 20´s century caused the shift from valuing the quality of knowledge to the knowledge quantity. The paper describes the new analytical concepts of the knowledge-based society represented by the German sociologists Nico Stehr, the author of Knowledge Societies (1994), and Helmut Willke. Normative approaches of supra-national societies such as OECD and UNESCO are explained, too. The paper is targeted at clarification of the designation of knowledge-based society, the stumbling blocks of this designation, and at describing the newly appearing challenges linked to this concept.

PEDAGOGIKA.SK, 2010, Vol. 1, (No. 3: 197-222)

Key words: post-industrial society, information society, knowledge-based society, knowledge, information, education

Over the past decade, fluent reading has come to be seen as a central component of primary school curriculum in Slovakia, with emphasis on accuracy and automacity in reading. Due to PIRLS and PISA international studies in reading literacy a shift was made to bring reading to real-life situation needs. However, there is little information on performance of adult population in Slovakia in reading literacy. To receive some initial data, a study was conducted with a sample of 133 university students from Educational Faculty in Bratislava. The released PISA reading literacy test items (2000) were used as a data gathering instrument expecting that university students will score at least at the 90 % level (or 90 points) on the test. However, this level was reached only by 25 % of students. About 25 % students from the sample scored less then 75 points out of 100. As concerns the reading process, the highest scores were obtained in retrieving information (86.2 p.), followed by interpretation (81.8 p.) and reflecting (78.8 p.). The findings are disappointing and indicate that the low level of text processing with university students in the sample is dominant.

PEDAGOGIKA SK 2010, Vol. 1. (No. 3: 183-196)

Key words: reading literacy, international studies, PISA, adult literacy, university students

The concept of the social indicator arose from the need of monitoring of attaining certain goals that are important for an individual, the society and the mankind. Social indicators are saturated by data collected within official periodical or occasional surveys. The paper presents the classification of social indicators used by the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic, by UNO, OECD, and the European Union. Indicators of social exclusion and some selected indexes are explained in more detail.

PEDAGOGIKA SK 2010, Vol. 1. (No. 2: 123-153)

Key words: sign, indicator, social statistics, Statistics Slovakia, OECD social indicators, Education at a Glance, indexes, human poverty index