TEM Journal. Volume 12, Issue 3, pages 1566-1574, ISSN 2217-8309, DOI: 10.18421/TEM123-38, August 2023. 1566 TEM Journal – Volume 12 / Number 3 / 2023. Content Analysis of the Subject of Technology at Basic Schools in Slovakia within the Context of the Upcoming Education Reform Alena Hašková 1 , Danka Lukáčová 1 1 Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Faculty of Education, Department of Technology and Information Technologies, Dražovská 4, Post code: 949 01, Nitra, Slovakia Abstract – Since 1989, various initiatives aimed at supporting humanity, linguistic, information, technical or polytechnical education in basic schools in Slovakia (i.e. at primary and lower secondary schools according to ISCED) were announced and implemented. At the end of 2020 the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic announced its intention to carry out a curricular reform on the level of ISCED 1 and ISCED 2. The article presents starting points and conceptions of both the previous as well as the announced curricular reforms, and subsequently the authors focus on the impact of these reforms on the content of the subject of technology, in frame of which technical education of students at lower level of secondary education is carried out. From the authors' point of view, the curricular reform of the subject of technology should increase students' interest in technically oriented fields of study. In this context, they present results of a research study, the purpose of which was to determine how students evaluate the current content (before the announced reform) of the technology subject. Keywords – Education reform, curricula, primary and secondary schools (ISCED 1-2), technical education, content analysis, students' interest in technical study programs. DOI: 10.18421/TEM123-38 https://doi.org/10.18421/TEM123-38 Corresponding author: Alena Hašková, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Faculty of Education, Nitra, Slovakia Email: ahaskova@ukf.sk Received: 27 February 2023. Revised: 04 June 2023. Accepted: 22 June 2023. Published: 28 August 2023. © 2023. Alena Hašková & Danka Lukáčová; published by UIKTEN. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. The article is published with Open Access at https://www.temjournal.com/ 1. Introduction Formation of a personality through the processes of training and education belongs among the critical functions of school in society. However, training and education are always tied to the specific content of the curriculum, which is embedded in the school curriculum. The school curriculum can be seen as the result of finding a balance between the societal demands placed on the individual and the individual's educational needs. Curricular reform should therefore support such transformation of education that would introduce more effective ways of personal development of pupils and students. However, analyses of school reforms implemented over the last three decades in various countries worldwide point to a strong link between state ideology and curricular innovation [1], [2], [3], [4]. Porubský et al. [5] point out that issues of education reform, school reform, or curricular reform have become more political and economic than pedagogical in recent years, not only for Slovakia but also for the broader international context. The quality of education and training is considered an indicator and crucial determinant of the maturity of economic systems and society. On the one hand, this brings many positive impulses for developing education, schools, teaching and learning processes, and educational sciences. On the other hand, however, it also brings such tendencies that do not respect the traditionally understood value of education by narrowing it down to a person's qualifications as a prerequisite for employment in the labour market [6], [7], [8]. According to the analyses presented, the reform is never an isolated modification of the curriculum but a philosophical and ideological change that must be accepted by all the actors involved in its implementation. On the one hand, the reform, to a certain extent, accepts the demands of the teachers themselves, who oppose the traditional approach to the mediation of the curriculum, aimed at creating the most optimal conditions for implementing the school reform.