Tendencies-challenges belong to the current trends in the world and Russian education. The increasing gap between quality of education and growth of requirements to competences of the professional became one of them. The second tendency is commercialization of education. The third tendency having powerful impact on the sphere of the higher education around the world is the information transformation. The content of education will be focused not only on assimilation of existing specialized knowledge, but also on formation of creative and social adequacy, and also on formation of readiness for retraining.
In a post-crisis era there are many questions. They include: how could so powerful crises happen if the world economy is based on knowledge and anticipation of crises or their reasons go beyond the world and society knowledge? The answer, obviously, can't be given here and now. At the same time, it doesn't mean that it is impossible to think of the civilization future hoping only for modernization, innovative development of education. It is necessary to hope and imagine the ways, means, high-quality changes in the system of the world and Russian education which analysis is a subject of this article.
The economy of post-industrial type need people who can work with modern technologies in changing external conditions, can independently estimate a situation, and make optimum decisions. Global crisis in education consists in that it continues training people for needs of leaving economy.
By the end of the XX century the whole branch of the world economy – the international market of educational services with annual sales volume in several tens of billions dollars and with the volume of consumers in several millions of trainees – was created. There was new article of export, i.e. receiving the higher education by foreign students. By World Trade Organization estimates, the capacity of the world market of education makes 50-60 bln. dollars. The steady leader in this area is the USA controlling nearly a quarter of a world financial educational turn. On the second place on volumes of educational sales is Great Britain (15%). Germany and France follow: the first holds slightly more than 10% of the world market, the second - is slightly less. The leader list is finished by Australia, Canada and Spain mastered by 7-8% of the market.
The modest place of the Russian higher education in this row (the tenth shares of percent of the world market) is one of testimonies of noncompetitiveness of our higher school.
Herewith the globalization goes through standards and diplomas. More and more educational programs follow international and not national quality standards. Those education systems which don't participate in the international competition for foreign students and, as a result, in the competition of the quality standards of education, eventually, make their countries non-competitive not only in education, but also in the economy sphere.
Explosive development of digital technologies and means of the Internet led to that the content of education in general and the content of subject knowledge in particular aren't unique property of a certain professor any more, and recently - of the certain higher education institution. It forces us to reconsider, at least, forms of delivery and assessment of knowledge in educational process.
The situation in Russia, except described above problems, is characterized by special tendencies. Demographic processes have serious impact on the situation in Russian education at all levels. Demographic recession touched the comprehensive school to the fullest extent: the number of pupils decreased from 22 to 14 million in 10 years. In the next years the reduction of total number of pupils will begin at all levels of professional education: the number of entrants in 2010 - in comparison with 2006 - will be cut by half.
The significant age of the higher-education teaching personnel and managers is characteristic for the Russian higher education: 36.6% of workers are older than 65 years. In recent years the inflow of youth to higher education institutions quickened, but rates of natural are still higher than dynamics of renewal of the higher-education teaching personnel, and actually we have a generational gap. Herewith, incredible as it may seem, the growth of the fiscal capacity doesn't promote the renewal of staff in education: the better a financial situation in the system is, the less those who wish to clear places giving opportunity of career growth to the young people.
Today the higher education is not a social ladder or elevator, but the peculiar social institute of the conservation which is not adapted for the competition in the environment.
The list of tendencies can be continued with their short enumeration as they worry each Russian patriot: external tendencies - decrease in competitiveness in the global market, the higher school doesn't form the innovators and gives a small amount of innovative ideas, decrease in quality of education proceeds, etc.; internal tendencies - 60% of young men and girls enter the higher education institutions, but there are not more than 30% of subject matter experts in Russia; training of the qualified executives weakened, the Russian technical training colleges and technical schools don't give modern qualifications; school, overloading the children with knowledge, is still unable to provide the teaching of useful abilities; there are a lot of obstacles destroying the formation of values, social competence and tolerance in youth.
What are the key hopes? It is known that Russia quite often revives "through challenges"; however it is more difficult to build its development and development of the necessary, competitive, qualitative and innovative education as a result of nonsystem measures, in the absence of complexity and prospects, anticipation and the long-term analysis.
The goals for next seven-ten years are the following. The share of the Russian higher education institutions in the world market of education has to grow to 10%. In monetary terms it means that the revenue from training of foreign students in the Russian higher education institutions has to make not less than 5 bln. US dollars and to become comparable with the budgetary financing of this sphere (today in Russia the number of foreigners from total number of students is less than 1% that provides a revenue about 100 mln. dollars). Even more important is that the export of education provides for the country not only a straight line economic benefits but also expansion of the social, economic and technological standards. The professoriate revenue at the leading universities of Russia can become partially comparable with the income of colleagues in the advanced states (the average income of professor in Europe is 60-80 thousand dollars a year, in the USA - 80-120 thousand). However, it is impossible to make education a perspective branch for career and self-realization of young researchers and teachers if non-competitive social conditions remain.
Not less than 25% of the amount of financing of education has to be carried out from the economy sector (now this share is less than 5%). It is a question of target preparation of specialists, financing of certain programs of professional education, funds of the target capital and other ways of manifestation of investment interest of business in activity of educational institutions.
The R&D share in structure of the income of leading universities has to make not less than 25%. Only in unity with real scientific researches and development the training of the high quality experts adequate to modern life can be carried out. Those who don’t conduct own research work and/or aren't involved in implementation of Social and economic projects can't be considered as mature professors and teachers. New decisions, strategy and tactics are necessary for this. Such attempts to find and estimate them in relation to Russian education are being made. Educational experience of the countries which are actively building innovative economy is investigated. But direct adoption can turn back for Russia with a retardment conservation as there is a danger to lean not on the latest but on the becoming mass practices. Secondly, some "foreign" decisions can be badly applicable in the conditions of the Russian society and economy. For example, in Mexico and other countries of Latin America there were huge universities which actively use the unified Remote methods of training. But it is obvious that it doesn't match as the main way of development of the higher school of Russia where cultural and educational level of the population is higher and there is a broad tradition of seminars and schools of sciences at universities.
On the other hand, in Russia - both inside the developed education system, and out of it - there are already the practices meeting the new requirements. Origins of these practices lie in innovative boom of the beginning of the 1990th. In recent years the significant positive role in this process was played by the National priority project "Education" supported the innovative practices at schools and higher education institutions.
Some innovative practices appear as a reaction of progressive elements of educational system to changes in the Russian economy and society. These are the experimental schools, embedding of training centres of corporations in universities, faculties of pre-university preparation, university districts and the Internet schools filling the methodical and substantial gaps between schools and higher education institutions. Other practices are the result of attempts of clients of educational system to fill "education gaps" by own efforts. So, in recent years inside the corporations the considerable sector of training centres which gradually began to work not only for internal requirements but also for a foreign market was created. On the Internet there is a big massif of the reference and educational resources supplementing an official set of training materials.
One of obstacles in high-quality and progressive development of the education system is formation of the case of managers of the system ready to consecutive and laborious work which results will be noticeable in 5-10 years.
One of topical issues of the agenda is change of the contents, method, pedagogical technologies in the modern education which technological platform (lecture and seminar model) didn't change more than 250 years since appearance of Humboldt model of university.
This model was successfully realized in the best Soviet scientific and engineering higher education institutions, however, in the conditions of mass higher education the ideology of transfer of "ready tasks" has to be replaced gradually by
ideology of formation of competences, and the activity paradigm has to succeed a paradigm of transfer of knowledge. Problems of identification and transfer of modern ways of the organization and management of cogitative (educational, scientific) work of the person come to the forefront. Methods have also to be changed: projective approach, case-study, for example, in administrative education it is convincingly showed the efficiency of active methods in comparison with passivity of lecture and seminar model.
Focus and orientation to education during the life has to become not additional training but to give the chance to individualize educational trajectories providing by that the tolerance of an education system.
A number of fundamental consequences is connected with it:
- sharp increase in a choice, formation of the open market of educational programs and modules instead of in advance established standard;
- system of recognition of results of education in each module, transparent and clear for everybody;
- new regulation of the educational market; the state can't control quality of educational programs anymore;
- focus of regulation moves to ensuring completeness and reliability of information provided by participants of the market;
- herewith the organizational borders of the education system are smeared as the updating of adequacies and receiving the academic credits can take place also in real production of goods, knowledge, and technologies. It can be realized only in that case.
The work is submitted to the International Scientific Conference «Priority directions of development of science, technologies and equipment», Italy, on April 12-19, 2014, came to the editorial office оn 19.03.2014
Библиографическая ссылка
Balykhin M.G. KNOWLEDGE AND CRISIS, TOLERANCE AND COMPETITIVENESS: WHAT ARE THE POINTS OF INTERSECTION? // Международный журнал экспериментального образования. – 2014. – № 6. – С. 18-20;URL: https://expeducation.ru/ru/article/view?id=5832 (дата обращения: 24.11.2024).