In Eszterházy Károly College we have been examining the methodological questions of school problems, failures and forming of differential treatment for ages. The efficacy of long-term used pedagogical-methodological toolbar is less verifiable. Obviously, the children’s school carrier and then their labor market opportunities are influenced by the early contributions of the public education institutions, how they develop their basic skills.
For acquiring „Life long learning” and „successful life career” it is essential to form the personality caracteristics which are different from the traditional characteristics of the „good student”, such as self-sufficiency, internal control, self-regulated learning, openness, flexibility, creativity, tolerance, cooperation, critical thinking, problem solving, etc.

As antecedent of this research presented here between 2001 and 2003 we explored what problems emerges in the Hungarian public education at the beginning of 21st century. We found out that in the schools (particularly in disadvantaged regions) it is still tipical that:

§  Education accumulates knowledges, relies on memory

§  Students are regarded as receptive, frontal education is dominant

§  The amount of stored knowledge is central aspect of evaluation

§  School books are for learning knowledges, not for gaining information by own

§  The aim of evaluation is to control acquiring, it is not the basis of development

§  Maintenance of discipline is an important target

§  Teachers make rewards and punishments keep children’s interest, the school motivation is extrinsic

§  The applied methods do not support the cooperation and helping each other

§  Short lessons (45 minutes) are not eligible to apply projects and „natural learning”

§  „Differential treatment” and „differentiated skills development” rarely used

§  ICT tools are used for playing, not for active self-studying.

After exploring the problem we worked out methodological recommendations and programs between 2003 and 2004 (Szebeni, 2004, Hanák, 2009). Then we joined in 2 national methodological development projects, in which more competence-based programs has been elaborated (2005-2011) using the previous results and developed methodology programs. The international overview of teacher career eligibility competences and standards has also been carried out (Falus, 2011). After accrediting the programs these alternative methods were introduced in several schools.  

The target of this study to analyze the suitability of some alternative education programs in public education and the effectiveness of some teachers’ competence development programs. We planned to measure the opinions of students, teachers and parents about the efficiency of the new methods. Based on these aspects we aimed to judge the possibility of adapting these methods into teacher education. The examined school introduced the following programs: „Student cognition” (Tóth, 2005), „Curricular differentiation” (Kopp-Ollé, Zágon, 2006), „Project education” (Estefán-Szikszay, 2006), „Epochal education” (Németh, 2009), „Cooperative methods” (Kagan-Spencer, 2004, Taskó, 2011) and ICT tools (Lengyel, 2011). We aimed to analyze the students’, teachers’ and parents’ attitude towards the educational-pedagogical work reflecting on the alternative methods. Our assumption is that all groups have good opinion about the alternative methods, which are more efficient to adapt to the expectations of the 21 st century.

Estefán V. M. Szikszay K.(2006): Projektpedagógia alkalmazása a pedagógusképzésben és a gyakorlati képzésben. Eger: EKF kiadó. Falus I.(2011): Tanári pályaalkalmasság-kompetenciák-sztenderek nemzetközi áttekintés. Eger: EKF kiadó. Hanák Zs. (2009): Hátrányos helyzetű tanulók továbbtanulásának támogatása speciális tréningprogramok segítségével In.: Bábosik I.-Torgyik J.: Az iskola szocializációs funkciói Budapest: Eötvös Kiadó p.179-187 Hanák Zs.(2008): Program adaptations in the development of a competence based teachers' training in Hungary In.:International Magazine For Educational Sciences and Practica Montenegro: 3.sz. p.11-18 Kagan, Spencer (2004): Kooperatív tanulás. Budapest: Önkonet kiadó. Kopp E. Ollé J. Zágon B.(2006): Tanórai differenciálás Budapest: Sulinova kiadó. Lengyel M. T. (2011):A pedagógiai mérés és értékelés feladataira való felkészítés az árnyalt tanulói értékelés módszertanának tükrében. In: Megújuló tananyagtartalmak a kompetencialapú tanárképzésben. Eger: EKF kiadó. p. 83-105. Németh T. Á. (2009): Tanári attitűdök és inkluzív nevelés. In.: Magyar Pedagógia 109.évf.2.szám p.105-121 Szebeni R. (2004): Beilleszkedő tréning a középiskolát kezdő tanulók segítése In.: „Alma-mater” program 3.füzet Eger: EKF kiadó. p.1-12 Taskó T. (2011): A tanulás tanításának elmélete és gyakorlata különös tekintettel a természettudományok oktatására Eger: EKF kiadó. Tóth L. (2005): Pszichológiai vizsgálati módszerek a tanulók megismeréséhez. Debrecen: Pedellus kiadó.