Fundamental Pedagogy Jana Doležalová

to meet the stipulated goals (Čáp, J., 1993) and improving one’s own 
personality in the widest possible sense (Pelikán, J., 1995). Self-education is 
a planned, systematic and intentional process of developing the rational 
skills and abilities, conative and character qualities, interests and the sensual 
life of the individual. It stems from the individual’s own will and motivation, 
which are different for individual people.
According to R. Kohoutek, the content of self-education should be the 
development of one’s own personality and the desirable lifestyle. The ideal 
outcome is a harmonic personality that displays adequate modesty, healthy 
self-awareness and positive visions for the future (Kohoutek, 2012).
Self-education is sometimes seen as education to moral values, at other 
times it is identified with self-schooling/training. As a rule, one always plans 
and determines the goals and chooses the instruments for their 
achievement himself/herself. Through own behaviour and actions, one 
heads toward the fulfilment of the goals. One also becomes the organiser 
and evaluator of the self-educational process and its results.
One learns all these activities during childhood and while growing up. The 
best results are achieved if the educational process is facilitated by an 
educator, who makes the self-educational activities easier for the self-
educating person and helps and supervises its successful course.
Self-education concepts differ according to the positions in various 
segments. We may observe specific focus of self-education in professional 
segments, e.g. pedagogy (Svatoš, 2008, Kyriacou, 2008), psychotherapy 
(Ulrichová, 2013), law (Holeček, et al., 1997) or mental hygiene (Míček, 
1986) and psychology (Čáp, 1993, Kohoutek, 1998). 
Why and when self-education is formed 
People are active and thus affect both themselves and their environment. 
Self-education occurs when an individual decides to change or improve 
his/her psychological and character qualities/features, feels the need to 
know and find more, deal with life’s goals and/or display better 
performance. Self-education takes place after self-evaluation, in response to 
examples set by others or after evaluation by others. Self-education is 
carried out with various depth and focus, depending on age. In early 
education and during the course of schooling, children should be motivated 

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to educate themselves and the relevant skills should be formed in children. 
In adolescence, we can make use of young people’s need to get to know 
themselves. In adulthood, self-education occurs on the basis of the basic 
human needs and circumstances.