Second international conference CALT: "Creative Approaches to Learning and Teaching"

This paper examines the development and role of practical skills as a component of early technical education in Croatian schools from the mid-19th century to 1918, within the broader context of educational reforms in the Habsburg and Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The study is based on a qualitative historical-pedagogical approach, focusing on the analysis of textbooks and school manuals as primary sources for reconstructing educational practices of the period. The aim is to determine how technical knowledge and life-practical skills were defined, valued, and integrated into the formal education system.

The findings indicate that technical and practical content was not established as an independent subject but was integrated into general education, particularly within natural science and language instruction. Technical and scientific knowledge was predominantly descriptive, oriented toward understanding natural phenomena, materials, and technological inventions, with a strong emphasis on their practical application in everyday life, economy, and crafts. Practical skills appear implicitly in the analyzed sources, mainly through descriptions of their functionality, while their actual development largely depended on the role of teachers and experiential learning outside the classroom.

The study also highlights the strong educational function of textbooks, which promoted work, utility, responsibility, and moral values as key social principles. In conclusion, the analyzed materials represent an important indicator of the gradual formation of awareness regarding the connection between education and work, laying the foundations for the later development of systematic technical education in the Croatian educational context.

Conference website:
https://second-international-conference-calt--creative-approaches-to-le.webnode.hr/

Conference programme:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ppBtVuVj7r2UMA-NolllLtF-F-1_wg12/view

Book of abstracts:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1frk7EFw0NKz87zTBHLOXFG9swSGgA5SB/view