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CONCERNING THE DEVELOPMENT
OF EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS
IN THE SYSTEM OF LIFELONG EDUCATION
Т. Y. Lomakina
L. М. Perminova
Solving the problem of standardization in education is complicated by the contradiction between the high rate of development of education, the main property of which is dynamism, and the relatively low speed (delay) of the process of development of such necessary pedagogical/didactic standards as educational standards. This contradiction is most acute in the lifelong education system - a complex system which combines different levels and stages of education, the development of which should be based on the principles of consistency and continuity. A significant obstacle to the coordinated development of the lifelong education system is the fact that social and cultural changes in society are primarily addressed to the system of professional education. Moreover, this is done very incoherently in terms of the forecasted objectives and results.
Analysis of the educational standards of professional education has shown that there are certain defects in their content, as well as problems of a legal character. A new generation of educational standards was supposed to be developed on the basis of professional standards, most of which have not yet been developed, and those that have been developed are not based on the National Qualifications Framework. Unfortunately, in our country, educational standards have never been consistent with the requirements of the economy, so graduates were always further retrained at enterprises. Considering this bitter experience, the third generation of educational standards should have been developed in a different way. What do we have in reality? Professional standards in the field of education: (a) contravene the existing legislation in the field of education; (b) threaten the stability of the legal regulation of labor relations in the field of education; (c) cannot be the basis for the development of professional educational programs, and federal state educational standards of professional education, because of the undeveloped scientific-theoretical and methodological framework; (d) do not reflect the specific character of work of a teacher (high level of creativity, pending outcome), and its differences from the production sector; (e) do not contain legal mechanisms for implementing professional standards in the field of education. [3] These problems also relate to standards in other professions.
In these circumstance a secondary school, which operates within the framework of previous targets and values, is not ready to accept the changed requirements. For example, elementary school should solve the problems of an adaptive and development character aimed at cognitive, communicative, physical and aesthetic development of schoolchildren and their socialization. The educational standard should divide all this into components, expressed in competences, and there is a great number of them, and they need to be developed within a limited period of time.
An analysis of the school educational standards of the first and second generations showed a lack of their methodological foundation, especially of the first
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generation of standards. It was possible to identify two strategic objectives of learning, which should exist throughout the whole period of study at school, and, we believe, at other levels of education as well: (1) development of sustainable cognitive interest of students (in the context of the relationship “the person - the world”) and (2) formation of a coherent picture of the world. [5] Analysis of the content-based aspect of educational standards, which prescribes the possession of core competencies and general educational skills and abilities (educational standards of the first generation), as well as universal education actions, general educational skills and abilities, extra-curriculum skills and competencies (educational standards of the second generation), allowed us to make a conclusion about the necessity to develop a certain didactic tool of a universal character, the scientific and methodological basis of which includes cognitive functions of scientific knowledge (descriptive, explanatory, predictive). As for cognitive functions, it is possible to group general educational skills as components of the core competencies, and the variety of the core competencies themselves (the number of which may increase or decrease), as well as to describe the educational standards using the language of psychology, by expressing that educational standards are “universal learning activities”. The latter are correlated with general educational skills and abilities, as their common base is the structure of activity: an ability is a form of presentation of action; an ability is an outer side of a competence /competency, whereas action is their internal, essence-based side. Thus, educational matters (target, essence, meaning) remove the contradiction between didactic matters and psychological matters [7]. In this work the main thing is the possibility of ordering, classifying and systemizing of educational units, including the integrative ones.
In our opinion, it is interesting to consider the experience of the use of UNESCO educational standards in the operations of a St. Petersburg school as a regional education system with an attempt to adapt them for the conditions of general education. Thus, the following standards were adopted in a St. Petersburg school at the turn of ages (the 1990s - early 21st century): in elementary school -basic literacy, general school - functional literacy, senior school - social competence, in which the following was singled out: general cultural competence for general education level; pre-professional competence for profession-oriented school, including lyceums and schools with in-depth study of specific disciplines, and methodological competence for grammar schools. The first issue that arose was the issue of the need to harmonize educational standards at various levels of education, and to ensure continuity between them. The experimental work carried out within the city's annual workshops (attended by 80 secondary educational institutions) “Functional Literacy” and “Social Competence” (headed by prof. O.E. Lebedev, headed by prof. L.M. Perminova) showed that between such types of educational standards as functional literacy and social competence there is no continuity of education: (a) training of functional literacy and social competence may be based on a common methodology (eg., cultural approach), but they are based on different technologies and didactic systems; (b) a person may have a high level of social competence, but be functionally illiterate. [6] Subsequently, this conclusion was confirmed by studies of S.G. Vershlovsky and M.D. Matiushkina [1].
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Under the conditions of development of the lifelong education system, and with the view of harmonizing the content of different levels of the lifelong education system - general education and professional education - it is advisable to develop uniform requirements for lifelong education standards. The following aspects may become the didactic guidelines to designing of such educational standard. Methodological aspect will reflect consistency of learning activities, when their aggregate is adequate to the structure of the scientific theory; the ability to choose the methodological and theoretical background for upcoming activities; the ability to use functions of the scientific knowledge. The technological aspect will characterize flexibility of mental procedures, the ability to carry out theoretical, practical, and project activities; and the ability to critically evaluate and allocate resources. The value-based aspect is focused on the ability to separate the humanitarian and value-based aspects of activity; the ability to see risk situations; to prioritize activities. The synergistic aspect will reflect the ability to carry out a dialogue (a dialogue of cultures as understanding of the other party), the ability of organization and self-organization, the ability to integrate knowledge -humanitarian, scientific, technical, practical; the ability and willingness to assume responsibility (willingness to be a leader).
In the structure of the educational standard it is expedient to separate a certain invariant part as a basis that contains value-based, activity-based and ontological components. The outlined basis could serve as transcendental and at the same time universal foundation focused on the innovative changes in the objectives and content of lifelong education. The outlined above three components in the structure of the educational standard of lifelong education correspond to the composition of scientific knowledge (such components as knowledge, practices, and values are present in the content of any science), and form the methodological basis for development of the scientific, professional and cultural picture of the world, and therefore, outlook of a person. Thus, we can emphasize the social and cultural nature of educational standards in the system of lifelong education and its appropriateness for both a person and for society.
If we are talking about the functional model of lifelong educational standards, they should meet the following conditions/requirements: (1) a goal as a result of training, a scientific picture of the world as a meaningful whole, universal skills that characterize learning opportunities are the bases of the model; (2) the content-based part must include the scientific and professional pictures of the world, focused on the obligation to use universal skills, presented in accordance with the logical- scientific criteria; (3) the verification part should be focused on monitoring (in content-based, activity-based and value-based terms). At the same time there can be the following functions of the educational standard (or its basis): methodological (pre-requisite, indicative), content and activity-based, organizational and controlling, diagnostic (as enabling the development of a subject).
The proposed model is not “tied” tightly to the content, is flexible and has a possibility of dynamic substitutions of information (knowledge, ways of activity, values - guidelines.) In our opinion, it can be developed and experimentally tested at local pilot sites.
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References
1. Вершловский С. Г., Матюшкина М. Д. Функциональная грамотность выпускников школ // Социс, 2007. - № 4. - С. 140-144.
2. Ломакина Т. Ю. Модернизация профессионального образования: теория, опыт, проблемы: коллект. моногр. / сост. Т.Ю. Ломакина; под науч. ред. Т. Ю. Ломакиной. - М.: ФГНУ ИТИП АО, 2012 - 318 с.
3. Ломакина Т. Ю. Теоретические основы формирования образовательной траектории личности в системе непрерывного образования. Професшне становлення особистостк Психолого-педагопчний жупнал. № 1 жовтень 2013. - С. 45-51.
4. Стратегические цели и аксиологический базис образования в XXI веке // Педагогика, 2005. - № 10.
5. Перминова Л. М. Образовательные стандарты в контексте школьного обучения // Педагогика, 2005. - № 10. - С. 95-102.
6. Перминова Л. М. Формирование функциональной грамотности учащихся: основы теории и технология. - СПб.: СПб ГУПМ, 1998.
7. Перминова Л.М. Дидактическая взаимосвязь школьных образовательных стандартов первого и второго поколений // Педагогика, 2010. - № 4. - С. 26-32.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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