Apr 29, 20212 min read

SWOT analysis – THREATS

Updated: May 12, 2021

Final stage of conducting SWOT analysis in partnering schools was, of course, detecting external threats to their schools – the “T” letter in SWOT acronym. This was last factor to be analyzed and it had to be finished before end of April 2021. Threats in SWOT matrix represent negative external circumstances over which organization doesn’t have any or has small amount of control. The goal of defining them is to plan activities that will neutralize these negative factors or turn them in advantage.

By the end of the April, participants of SWOT VET project had to make lists of external threats to functions of their schools and quality of their education. This was the final analytic step, though there are some following activities before the project is ready to close – like gathering and summarizing to the main points students’ SWOT nets (ones represented in screenshots) and coming up with solutions. For this activity, students used the same tools they used throughout previous SWOT activities. We share with you the list one more time just in case you like designs produced via some of these applications and you’d like to try them yourself:

Lazăr Edeleanu Highschool Navodari, Romania – miro.com
Private school Futura, Zagreb, Croatia – coggle.it
Liceul Teoretic Emil Racovita, Baia Mare, Romania – app.ayoa.com
Uzun Mehmet MTAL Kdz. Ereğli, Turkey – popplet.com
Özcan Yılmaz MTAL Datça, Turkey – bubbl.us
Ekonomska i birotehnička škola Bjelovar, Croatia – ideaboardz.com
Hamitler Toki MTAL Bursa, Turkey – gitmind.com
Şehit Yüzbaşı Özgür Özekin MTAL Fethiye, Turkey – mindmeister.com

Turns out, all of participating schools have some similar problems that are not related to their location, programs they offer or cultural differences. Almost every school pointed out towards lack of support for vocational schools and them being unpopular option for high school education. In some cases, this is also enabled via formal actions of their governments, like poor funding of their schools and not encouraging students to enroll in vocational programs.

Consequences are that there are less and less students in some field which leads to dying-off of some professions, lack of funding results in lack of qualified teachers (or teachers in general), outdated curricula and equipment (especially in schools that offer IT education). The latter is to some greater extent result of technology and market moving and developing too fast in comparison to educational system. Additional problem that bothers few schools is online teaching which has low quality and also disables students in doing their internships or practical assignments.

Once again, these schools, on the other hand, do have some threats that are location- or culture-specific, and you can find them in screenshots below. Take a look at them, at least in order to find out what some other communities struggle against.