motivation, aptitudes for profession, secondary education in engineering, engineering practice, labour market

The main aim of the paper is to introduce the recent findings of the motivation of secondary technical schools’ students in the field of engineering. Technological progress requires higher quality and quantity of human resources working in engineering field, however, the interest of youth in studying the field is falling steadily. A project “Education in engineering and its optimisation for the needs of the labour market” led by the Technical Agency of the Czech Republic (TAČR), which is implemented by the Faculty of Education at the University of Ostrava together with the National Engineering Cluster is focused on discovering the factors influencing the choice of these fields, students´ satisfaction with their studies, study aspiration and manifestation of an in-depth interest in technical fields. The results of a pilot research confirm that almost one half of the students believe they possess aptitudes for engineering professions.