Aspects of vocational teachers leaving their career

Abstract

In Hungary, general education and professional teacher training historically stem from the same source, which are well separated from each other in terms of their institutional system and regulations. In our country, teaching career and teacher training have come into focus in the recent period. The focus was mostly on general knowledge teacher training and training structure in the profession, but at the same time, vocational teacher training must be treated in a special way due to its many different characteristics and peculiarities. Research dealing with the current difficulties and questions of professional teacher training has only been focused on a few occasions. The aim of the review presented in this study is to fill this gap. There have been several domestic publications related to the history of the training (Ballér, 1985; Orosz, 1991; Tóth and Varga, 2002). Content and methodological analyses have been published as well, but in the last decade, most research have been related to students entering training and institutions (Bacsa-Bán, 2014; Tóth, 2011). The situation of professional teachers can also be said to be very special in terms of leaving the field. The purpose of our article is to introduce the historical aspects of professional teacher training, emphasizing the importance of practices in training, to present the situation of this special group of teachers in an international context, and to put a special focus on the characteristics that shed new light on the phenomenon of teacher attrition. Thus, our intention is to set up a picture of professional teachers in terms of leaving the profession. Our results confirm the revealed reasons for dropping out, which are supplemented by specific aspects of professional teacher training.