Difficulty Aspects of the Vocational Education and Training

The paper presents results of a study the aim of which was to find out what causes difficulty in teaching technical subjects at upper secondary schools. For this purpose, a panel discussion was held with 20 selected staff members of two schools. The task of the panellists was to answer three questions: what are causes of difficulties in teaching technical subjects; what are the effective ways of motivating students to study technical subjects and how is it possible to maintain the motivation of students for a longer period of time; hence, what makes it possible to attract the attention of students more significantly in the teaching of technical subjects. The discussion was led by 3 moderators, university teachers from Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland. As it resulted from about 45-minute discussion of each of the stated questions, the main difficulty of technical subjects teaching is lack of students´ motivation what is partially caused by the way in which the students are assessed, and partially linked with the need to replace verbal teaching methods by other ones.