School and Development of Innovation

Slovenia lags behind more organised and globally competitive states, as measured by a number of important indicators. This has exposed its lack of appropriate strategies and policies to improve the situation. The following paper presents the findings of a project that monitored the work of enterprise circles and analysed their strengths and weaknesses. Differences were also found between the positions taken by the group of teachers that participated in the project and a randomly selected control group of teachers. The findings indicate that teachers who led enterprise circles were critical of an over-emphasis on administrative work connected to the preparation of typical business plans. They were frustrated by overly detailed and prescriptive syllabuses, are more likely to accept pupils’ ideas, and make more frequent use of ICT in their teaching. They are less likely to attribute open thinking and innovation to their schools and also believe that their schools are less tolerant of mistakes and put more emphasis on discipline.