15% of Estonian population is 65 or older, which means that we live in  aging society and the process is increasing - in the year 2030 the aging population could form ¼ of the whole population. The situation might cause the failure of pension system. One solution is the prolongation of retirement age. But the increasing number of senior employees at labor market brings along new challanges to organiszations. However, studies implemented among employers have proved that managers do not pay much attention or invest ressources to senior employees. They believe that senior employees:

1) do not contribute effectively at  work for they are looking for their retirement period

2) are more often ill and more often absent from work

3) effectiveness at work is lower in comparisson with younger employees because of their lower qualification gained long time ago.

The situation is the same at schools.

The increasing number of senior teachers raise two questions to educational institutions:

1) what factors support senior teachers´ in their professional development in order to manage quick changes in education (reforms, demographic changes, changes in technology and labour market and other changes that influence teaching at schools), and

2) is and in what way is the management in educational institution ready to create environment that will support senior teachers in their professional development.

Therefore, the research questions are as follows:

1) how senior teachers as professionals themselves understand their professional development (on individual level) – why do they still want to work at school.

2) what is the awareness of school management (directors, rectors, study directors, vice rectors, heads of departments/ study chairs) of the professional development of senior teachers

 2)are and  how are schools  ready to support senior teachers, what are the preconditions at schools to support them.

Relying on the survey question the main aim of the work is to analyze the awareness of the management of colleges and vocational schools on the peculiarities of professional development  of senior  teachers.

The main concept of the theoretical framework is the concept of professionalization whereas teachers profession is characetrized by three  keyfigures: expert knowledge, service and autonomy. Professional development is the process where teachers professionalization is elaborated. There are two trends in professional development of teachers: attitudinal and functional. Attitudinal development is a process for creating teachers work attitudes, and functional helps to improve their work effectiveness.The professional development should cover both trends, but the success in professional development assumes changes in professionalism.

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