Vocational High School Teachers’ Identification with Core Competency of 12-Year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines and Its Pedagogical Transformation - Teaching Experience as Study

Vocational education is crucial for secondary education in Taiwan. With the rapid development of technology, social change, and industry needs, education change has been processed accordingly. “108 Curriculum Guidelines” indicated the idea and the goal of the curriculum to take core competency as a key aspect in secondary education courses. Thus, it is necessary to explore the relevance between teachers’ identification with the core competency of 12-year basic education curriculum guidelines and its pedagogical transformation. Considering the professional knowledge and practical skills of vocational teachers, it is hard to combine them with the core competency into courses for pedagogical transformation. Thus, we analyze the impact of teaching seniority on core competency and its pedagogical transformation by collecting survey data from teachers in vocational schools in Taiwan. Teaching seniority shows a significant difference from the core competency, further affecting pedagogical transformation. Therefore, we propose specific suggestions as follows. First, teachers need to be encouraged to attend workshops to strengthen core competency. Second, course discussion among teachers is required to combine core competencies into courses. Third, the increase of identification to a core competency for senior teachers is demanded to perform pedagogical transformation with teachers’ rich experiences.