VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING AS A TOOL FOR IMPROVING SECONDARY EDUCATION IN BIH – THE TEACHERS' PERSPECTIVE

The most important objective of education system of a country is utilizing the knowledge that would enable systematic economic and social growth. Accordingly, the key education stakeholders have to connect and harmonize education with all society segments. One such initiative, the EU Vocational Education and Training Project (EU VET), was implemented in BiH. Its main goal is improvement of secondary vocational education and students' competitiveness on the labor market. This research was aimed to assess the benefits that the EU VET introduced in BiH, and to assess its connection with the labor market, all from the perspective of the teaching staff. To properly address research objectives, a questionnaire was developed and sent out to 340 teachers from the F BiH, yielding 275 valid responses. The research results confirmed that the EU VET project had a positive impact on education system in BiH. However, the research also revealed that the educational actors have no analytical capacities necessary for harmonizing the curriculum with the labor market needs.