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NEW PEDAGOGICAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES OF CONTINUOUS EDUCATION FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND PERSONS DEPRIVED OF LIBERTY
ORGANIZATIONAL AND PEDAGOGICAL CONDITIONS OF DISTANCE VOCATIONAL EDUCATION OF CONVICTS IN TIMBER INDUSTRY PENAL COLONIES
N. A. Molchanov
N. O. Verbitskaya
The article surveys organizational and pedagogical conditions of distant vocational education of convicts in timber industry penal colonies of the Ural Region with the introduction of the institution of facilitators in the learning process.
Key words: vocational training of convicts, resources, organizational and pedagogical conditions.
Vocational training of convicts is regarded in the penitentiary system as an important means of resocialization. This point has been codified in the Penal Code of the Russian Federation (Cl. 3, Article 108): "convicts' attitude to getting vocational education and vocational training shall be taken into account when determining the extent of their reformation". Under an agreement between the Ural State Forest Engineering University (USFEU) and the Chief Administration of the Federal Penitentiary Service in the Sverdlovsk Region (CAFPS), convicts admitted to the university have started getting distant professional education since 2014.
One of the aspects arousing the greatest interest in contemporary pedagogical surveys connected to the problems of improving the functioning of pedagogical systems and increasing the efficiency of the educational process is eliciting, substantiation and testing the pedagogical conditions ensuring the success of the current activities. Let us cite some approaches to defining the category of "condition" used in the surveys of pedagogical conditions of the educational process. V.A. Slastenin states that the circumstances necessary for carrying out the process and determining its quality are understood as conditions [3]. P.I. Pidkasisty defines a condition in his works as a component or a characteristic of the environment in which a student develops. S.Yu. Alasheev emphasizes the difference between such categories as "a condition" and "a factor". He defines pedagogical conditions as pedagogical circumstances accompanied and conditioned by the impact of factors promoting or obstructing the emergence of pedagogical regular patterns. As we analyze those statements, we can say that conditions are a disposition to some activity with the creation of certain circumstances in some sphere of life, activities, environment or the situation in which something happens or occurs. We view factors as a disposition with an active mechanism of carrying out that activity.
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In our work, a "condition" is connected with the concept of a resource as the qualitative measure of possible carrying out some activity, and the conditions permitting to obtain the desired result with the help of certain transformations. Respectively, by organizational and pedagogical conditions of higher vocational education of convicts at timber industry penal colonies, we shall understand the totality of resources conducive to the shaping of general cultural and professional competences focused on the values of nature.
Let us consider resources that shape organizational and pedagogical conditions in the process of higher vocational education of convicts in timber industry penal colonies. They are as follows:
The financial resource;
The statutory resource.
The staff and organizational/managerial resource.
Information and content resources.
The financial resource: Considered by Federal Law "On Education in the Russian Federation" (Chapter 13, Article 101, p.1): "organizations carrying out educational activities shall be entitled to carry out the above activities for account of natural and/or legal persons' funds under paid educational service agreements" [6]. In view of lesser cost intensity of distant higher vocational education, working convicts and their relatives are capable of paying fees for the educational services that do not exceed 50% of the cost of extramural university tuition. The upkeep of the teaching staff, the technical facilities and equipment is carried out using the federal budget in compliance with the established allocation limits.
The statutory resource: During the period of a convict's isolation from society, a number of his or her social benefits are limited, but he or she does not lose his/her citizenship of the Russian Federation. The right to education provided by Article 43, p.1 of the Constitution of the RF applies to him/her as well. Part 3 of the same Article stipulates that a citizen may get higher education at a state or municipal educational institution free of charge on a competitive basis [2]. Limitations impose a special legal status on a convict. Such a status requires a special approach to the organizational and pedagogical conditions of higher vocational education of convicts at timber industry penal colonies. Chapter 14, Article 108 of the Penal Code stipulates the duty of penal institution administrations: "to render assistance to convicts in getting higher professional education in view of the available opportunities." The principal form of higher vocational education of convicts is distant education [5]. The Concept of Development of the Penal System of the Russian Federation for the Period up to 2020 provides "further development of favorable conditions for getting general, primary, secondary and tertiary vocational education by convicts through extramural and distant tuition" [4]. The statutory substantiation for the development of vocational education of convicts in the Russian Federation is educational law. The Law "On Education in the Russian Federation", Article 80, Clause 9 presumes as follows: "persons sentenced to forced labor or deprivation of liberty shall be permitted to receive secondary vocational and tertiary education in extramural form at vocational educational organizations and tertiary educational organizations, with regard to the requirements of the penal legislation of the Russian Federation for the service of the respective kind of sentences. Article 16 of the same Law
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provides for the implementation of educational programs with the utilization of elearning and distant learning technologies as acceptable for convicts within the framework of their isolation from society" [6]. The law affords ground for convicts' receiving vocational education with regard to the requirements of the Penal Code of the Russian Federation. That means that the legal status of a convict changes, and in our case this is the status of a student/convict. However, the Federal law does not cover the problems of higher vocational education of convicts in detail. Bylaws contain a gap in respect of entrance tests by applicants being convicts serving sentences in custodial institutions. At the same time, the Order of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia "On Approval of the Procedure of State Final Academic Assessment on Secondary General Education Curricula" (2013) establishes that convicts serving sentences in custodial institutions shall pass state final academic assessment in the form of State Final Examination (hereinafter, SFI) with the utilization of texts, topics, tasks and examination papers. Thus, a conflict arises between equally valid regulatory acts. At the same time, Article 43, Part 3 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation grants every citizen the right to get higher education on a competitive basis. With the goal of overcoming this conflict of laws, the Academic Board of the USFEU has introduced a norm in its admission rules, permitting applicants from among the persons who got secondary (complete) education in custodial penal institutions after 01.01.2009 to take part in the competition on the ground of the results of the entrance test carried out by the USFEU on its own.
The staff and organizational/managerial resource. The organizational and pedagogical conditions for the implementation of vocational education of convicts at timber industry penal services are provided by the basic center of distant tuition. The general coordination of the staff and organizational/managerial resources used in the distant vocational education of convicts is carried out by the head of the extramural department. We have introduced the institution of a facilitator (in our context, this word means an intermediary). In our work, a facilitator belongs to organizational/managerial resources and does not play the role of a teacher [7]. A facilitator appointed from among the attested executives of the fostering department or the head of the convicts’ detachment is assigned to the students/convicts by order of the penal colony commander. By facilitation, we mean an intermediary's actions permitting to afford convicts access to the University's educational resources under the organizational and pedagogical conditions of distance vocational tuition, overcoming the custodial control limitations established by the Penal Code. Within the framework of direct internet access prohibition to a convict, a facilitator is an intermediary who hands the electronic educational materials supplied by the educational datacenter and the University e-library to the convicts/students serving sentences at timber industry penal colonies.
The information and content resources of distant vocational education of convicts are as follows: The information and educational resources are displayed on the server of the USFEU e-library. Students/convicts can get access to educational units only through a facilitator at the respective penal institution. A distant library is a service for remote use by a certain category of USFEU students (for the convicts/students, it is a facilitator) with downloadable full texts of
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educational documents and cultural and cognitive mediafiles prepared at the university departments and subdepartments. The USFEU remote library permits working with learning documents in .pdf format. Using the USFEU remote multimedia library permits one to read from a monitor (in an online mode) or to save the material on flash media or a PC (in an offline mode). The principal themes of the multimedia library are history, culture, environmental protection, demonstration of manufacturing equipment, etc.
The set of organizational and pedagogical conditions thus created is a warranty of the stability of the convicts' vocational education system and provides the basis for real humanization of the execution of punishment.
References
Алашеев С. Ю. Нормативно-правовое и организационно-управленческое обеспечение деятельности ресурсных центров профессионального образования С. Ю. Алашев., Г. Б. Голуб, Н. Ю. Посталюк / под общ. ред. Н.Ю. Посталюк. - М.: Логос, 2005. - 237 с. Конституция Российской Федерации. Сборник нормативных актов. - СПб.: Изд-во Санкт-Петербургского университета. - 1996. - 345 с.
Педагогика профессионального образования: учеб. пособие для студ. высш. учеб. заведений / под ред. В. А. Сластенина. - М.: Академия, 2004. - 368 с.
Распоряжение правительства РФ от 14.10.2010 г. № 1772-р, Концепция развития уголовно-исполнительной системы РФ до 2020 г. / СЗ РФ от 25.10.2010. - № 43. - 5544 с. Уголовно-исполнительный кодекс Российской Федерации // №1-ФЗ от 8.01.1997 г. (в ред. Федерального Закона от 01.07.2010 № 132-ФЗ) // СЗ РФ от 13.01.1997. - № 2. - 198 с. Федеральный закон «Об образовании в Российской Федерации», от 29.12.2012, № 273-ФЗ / Российская газета от 31.12.2012 - № 303.
Kaner, S. with Lind, L. Toldi, C., Fisk, S. and Berger, D. Facilitator's Guide to Participatory Decision-Making, (2007) Jossey-Bass.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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