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CONTINUING EDUCATION AS A WAY TO PRESERVE THE SOCIAL INCLUSION OF OLDER PEOPLE
N.N. Shestakova
E.I. Krasavceva
This article discusses the ensuring of older people's involvement in the social life of the society and the role in this process of the lifelong education system, including teaching elderly people basic computer literacy and Internet skills.
Key words: population of older age groups, education of elderly, social activity.
Within the last few decades, the expressed tendency to aging of the population has been noted all over the world. Thus, while in the 1950’s average life expectancy was 47 years; by 2010 this indicator had grown to 69 years. It is expected that by 2050 the average inhabitant of our planet will live until 76, and by 2100 - until 85. By 2050, the number of people aged 60 years and over will have increased from 600 million to nearly 2 billion people, and their share in the total population will have reached 21%. The absolute and relative numbers of the elderly are increasing, because of the improvement of quality of health care, intensive development of medicine, progressive shifts in sanitary inspection, expansion of the availability of education, and growth of economic wellbeing in general.
A number of countries which are considered “old” were designated: the share of elderly people (65 years and older) in their population comprises 7% and more. The Russian Federation is also among them. In our country, aging of the population happens both because of increasing life expectancy, and due to a reduction of number of young people. According to the forecasts of Rosstat, by 2016 the number of elderly and old people in general across Russia will reach 33.4 million people (24.8% aged 65 years and more). The average age of Russians to the middle of the XXI century will be 50 years and will have increased in comparison with 2000 by 13.2 years. In this regard, it is necessary to speak about several tasks that Russia faces. We will indicate two of them that are directly related to the issue in question. The first is a reduction of the numbers of the employable population and the subsequent increase of the burden of the pension load on the state budget. The second is the existing social exclusion of the senior age groups. It seems that both of these problems have a common decision: preserve the involvement of the senior age groups in public life and, if possible, in social productivity. Many countries have already realized it. In particular, Art. 12 of the Political declaration of the Second World Assembly on Aging states: "Hopes and expectations of elderly people and economic needs of society demand that elderly people have the opportunity to participate in the economic, political, social and cultural life of society. Elderly people should have the opportunity to be engaged in useful work as long as they want it and are capable of it, keeping their access to programs of general education and vocational training".
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Meanwhile, the use of work of the senior age groups in our country is mostly discriminatory in nature. For example, according to the information of the Employment Center of St. Petersburg, most often pensioners are offered the vacancies of security guard, cloakroom attendant, concierge, seller of food and nonfoods, controller, dispatcher, manager, PC operator, clerk, or book-keeper. Apparently, most of them do not suggest a high-level qualification and the use of experience, knowledge and skills accumulated throughout their working life. In a way, keeping persons of the third age group in their profession, or their movement to the posts of adviser, mentor, and consultant could help avoid it. According to experts, more than 20% of men and 19% of women aged 60 years and over amongst the unemployed in Russia, retain their resource potential; among the occupied in the economy the number of such people is twice as big.
One of the resources of the extension of social and professional activity is the access of this social group to vocational training and retraining. "In all countries, the lifelong access to education and vocational training is one of prerequisites of the employment of elderly people".
At the same time, reviewing the educational resources offered to persons of the third age group, one can find numerous courses on gardening, truck farming, floriculture, flower arranging, landscaping, knitting, dancing, foreign languages, computer literacy, and photography. Most of these resources are focused on leisure activity. These educational resources (both universities of the third age, and the courses having various statuses and an organization-legal form) position themselves as agents for the adaptation of elderly people to constantly changing living conditions, helping them to increase legal competence, to develop motivation to new kinds of activity, and to overcome social isolation and psychological problems.
At the same time, in our country the increase in the number of working pensioners is obvious. The main reasons for this phenomenon remains not only and not so much their desire to continue working, as the insufficient amount of pension provision. Therefore, according to the results of the first quarter 2014, in St. Petersburg 42.8% of total number of pensioners in the city were working. Nationwide, despite the fact that, by some estimates, no less than 30% of elderly citizens are focused on active work and retraining, about 16-17% of elderly people actually continue working after retirement. Thus, the preservation of workers of an older age not only in the profession, but also in the public employment sector in general, is often possible on the condition of additional training and retraining.
Meanwhile, a purposeful author's search of any complete system providing training, retraining, professional development for elderly returned no results. The authors found only separate, fragmentary examples of education for the elderly. A more or less complete picture can be found in some regions. The inclusion of the section concerning a vocational education of the pensioners willing to continue working into the State program of Primorsky Krai "Assistance of employment of the population of Primorsky Krai for 2013-2017" can be an example thereof. Such an opportunity appeared in the regions due to relevant amendments in the federal law "About employment of the population in the Russian Federation": public authorities of territorial subjects of the Russian Federation have an opportunity to organize vocational training, retraining and professional development of the pensioners that
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are unemployed, but are interested in continuing working. In this case, the following mechanism linked to the demand of regional labor market operates: training or additional education by the professions demanded in the regional labor market is carried out on the basis of the referrals of local employment authorities. The relevance of such formulation of the question is confirmed with the results of the previous sociological poll, according to which 54.4% of respondents of preretirement and retirement age would like to find a job, and 7.3% of the respondents expressed readiness to get vocational training or to improve their skills.
Perhaps, now the training of persons of an advanced age in the bases of computer literacy and skills of working on the Internet is more systemically organized. This area of training of the elderly should be recognized not only as the most dynamically developing, but also the most relevant one, as modern technologies allow elderly people to feel involved in social life. Meanwhile, according to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, in 2012 only 5% of Russians of the third age group were able to operate a computer, a smartphone and to use the Internet. In our country, various types of courses have become universally available to eliminate such inequality in the access to information. This tendency is characteristic for all territories of the Russian Federation. For example, in the Nizhny Novgorod Region, 130 platforms operate to train elderly people in computer literacy, and annually about 6,000 people graduate. Countrywide, this indicator exceeded 143,000 people. In 46 regions, public universities for training of the senior generation function, so-called "universities of the third age" of the union of pensioners of Russia.
The first positive shifts have already taken place: according to the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, over the course of two years, the number of personal appeals of citizens to offices of RPF of the Amur region reduced by 16,000, due to an increase in number of electronic applications via a feedback form on the official site of the organization. Nevertheless, despite the positive dynamics, the existing programs cover only 10% of the older people in need of training today.
It is obvious that teaching persons of retirement age computer literacy and training their skills of work on the Internet provides them not only with wide opportunities to increase their social activity and opens additional channels of communication for the elderly with the outside world, but also promotes the upgrading of their education, professional res-socialization and self-employment (including remote employment as a sufficient working condition convenient for them).
In general, preserving the third age population in the education system, including familiarization of the elderly with any electronic devices, media and the Internet, substantially promotes the overcoming of their social exclusion.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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