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COLLEGE TEACHERS’ COMPETENCES IN THE LIFE-LONG EDUCATION SYSTEM
S.N. Grishina,
M.V. Kulesha
At present, the development of a continuous vocational training system at metropolitan educational institutions, including colleges, is in the focus of public and professional attention. It is mostly connected with the general improvement in quality of primary and secondary vocational training, and the introduction of federal state educational standards in particular. A key mechanism of their implementation is the introduction of an education quality assessment system, which also implies the development of human resources of the educational institution as the main component of training efficiency and quality.
In 2012, the Moscow Government introduced a program referred to as Development of Education in Moscow for the Intermediate Period of 2012-2016, which has a section Metropolitan Education. The program implementation mechanisms are to include the Moscow Education Quality Standard. The program pays much attention to the personnel policy of a modern college: “the modernisation of any system and its progress or development in a new format, are impossible without competent personnel support” [1]. We cannot help but recollect the famous saying; It is cadres that are all-important! Well, probably not allimportant, but undoubtedly, very important. At any stage of development of both society as a whole and each establishment in particular, personnel are a valuable resource that cannot be created instantly, but need the laborious development of the teacher’s professional skills and their improvement.
Education reform directly depends on changes in mutual relations between an educational institution, a pedagogical worker, a learner and his parents, society and the state. Today, schools and colleges function on a competence-based approach, focusing the entire educational process on the formation of the learners’ key competences. Application of competence-based and practice-oriented approaches in the training of specialists at vocational training establishments makes the teacher develop and introduce the technologies of active, co-operative and contextual training into the academic activity. Their application considerably increases every learner’s independent work, and the practical element of training. It changes the teacher’s role by stepping up the requirements to his organizational abilities and professional skills. The college pays special attention to liberal art teachers’ competences. Not only are they to form general competences, but also build up the basis for professional subjects relevant to their profession or speciality by using cross-subject links, which, in its turn, implies a formation of basic knowledge in the teacher’s subject relevant to the kind of training. For this purpose, the teacher himself has to have the necessary knowledge that can be used in both professional work and daily life. It is necessary to pay special attention to new technologies which provide a transition from classical forms and methods of learning to developing, problem solving, and research methods of the organization of learners’ activities, and forming their cognitive motives and interests.
The modern concept reorients the purpose of education from the knowledge paradigm to competence, from the giving of knowledge to the acquisition of
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knowledge. That changes the teacher’s role in training. The teacher is not a provider of theoretical knowledge, but the learner’s adviser at all stages of the independent search for knowledge. It is necessary for the teacher to move to person-focused educational technologies, when the learner’s core activity is creativity, and the independent search of information, a project or research. Here, the teacher’s role is instruction, guidance, correction and support of the learner. It is not easy to change educational stereotypes. From year to year, the college experiences an increased need for teachers having both a pedagogical education and vocational skills in the subjects taught by the college, especially those of the professional cycle. It is the teacher’s professional competence and personal qualities that stipulate the training quality, which is in the focus of vocational training. In their turn, these teacher’s qualities definitely affect the formation of a creative sphere of their application, such as projects, research, and innovation activities of both the teacher himself and his learners.
All the above form a competence-based model of a modern teacher, consisting of several interconnected components that can be considered as a comprehensive toolkit of high-quality training results.
At present, metropolitan colleges are actively developing continuous education systems, by expansion of their educational services. Polytechnic College No. 2, Moscow, implements curricula of several stages: primary and secondary vocational training, mainstream and secondary (complete) general education, vocational training, and additional vocational training. Each stage of the curricula needs professionals able to adapt to the new conditions of changing priorities in education and the training process. A lot of teachers give classes at several stages and levels of training. Naturally, that affects the selection of technologies and training techniques.
Education reforming is a series of different events with the teacher in their foci. New qualification criteria and qualification profiles of teachers make the latter raise the level of such personal competences as self-improvement and selfdevelopment of professional knowledge and abilities. Moreover, a lot of teachers understand that the knowledge obtained as recently as seven to ten years ago is already not enough for high-quality training of learners. An unchanged condition is counterindicated to the teacher, who should continuously study and seek to develop his professional competence in the same way as his learners.
Therefore, the basic precondition of success for any worker, including a teacher, is LIFETIME EDUCATION ►LIFELONG EDUCATION.
References
1. Государственная программа города Москвы на среднесрочный период (2012-2016 гг.) «Развитие образования г. Москвы» («Столичное образование»), подпрограмма «Начальное и среднее профессиональное образование», раздел III, пункт 10.
2. Современные образовательные технологии: учебное пособие / коллектив авторов; под редакцией Н.В. Бордовской. - М., КНОРУС, 2011. - С. 5.
3. М. В. Буланова-Топоркова, А. В. Духавнева, В. С. Кукушин, Г. В.Сучков Педагогические технологии: учебное пособие. - Ростов н/Д., Изд. центр «МарТ»; Феникс, 2010. - С. 91-92.
4. Современные образовательные технологии: учебное пособие / коллектив авторов; под редакцией Н. В. Бордовской. - М., КНОРУС, 2011. - С. 86-87.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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