Teachers’ perceptions of and solutions for student school failure

Abstract

School failure is an important aspect of students’ development and their progression through the process of education, as well as for the functioning of the education system itself. The paper reports the results of a qualitative study exploring the relationship between primary school teachers’ perceptions of student school failure and the solutions suggested for its overcoming. Obtained data pointed to the differences of the solutions for the problem of student school failure suggested by teachers with respect to their own time perspective (an orientation towards past, present or future). There were also certain differences in the suggested solutions for the problem of student school failure depending on teachers’ conceptualisation of school failure (poor grades or misbehaving), but these differences were less prominent. It has been concluded that it is needed to include the knowledge about the role of personal time perspective into in-service teacher training in order to raise teachers’ skills for coping with the problem of student school failure.