IVET Teachers in the Republic of Serbia: Learning for New Professional Demands

The Serbian VET Reform is promoted by the EU through the Copenhagen process and the Republic of Serbia is taking part in it with an aim of modernizing the education system in order to satisfy the EU standards and come closer to joining the EU. Within the education system these changes are noticeable in the simultaneous processes of centralization of education standards and decentralization of the responsibility to adapt to the labor market. The analysis of education policies related with VET in the EU and Serbia has shown that the VET system is being reformed through educational standardization and alignment with the EU. These changes have implications on teachers and their practice since they are faced with a sort of a double challenge being in a position of both agents and learners of the VET reform, its subjects and objects at the same time. The reform is promoting freedom and individual choice, but also prescribes new centralized rules and standards making the position of teachers paradoxical which has an impact on teachers’ identities.