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CONTINUITY OF LIFELONG PEDAGOGICAL EDUCATION IN THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
U. K. Tolipov
Education is an indissoluble part of any society, the index of its culture and an indicator of its essential progress, providing unity and continuity of social experience. At the current stage of world economic and social development continuous education is seen as an important global problem. It is undoubtedly necessary to solve the problem of continuity-functionality within the time and space of societal aims and the methods of their realization.
Professional education in the Republic of Uzbekistan is one of the country’s priorities. The educational system on the whole, and the pedagogical system in particular, is adapting to actual and potential demands of the labor market and is focused on building up the ability of students to partake in productive labor. The law of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On education” and the National Program for the Training of Specialists provide the most common foundations, methods and mechanisms for realizing the National Model of Specialist Training. This national model as a system and as an independent social-economical category and its constituent components interact closely, providing for the development of the individual in practically all governmental structures and social institutions.
Governmental policy regarding higher education is based on the following principles: humanism; democracy in education and upbringing; perseverance; the continuity of secondary vocational, professional, higher and further education; the secular nature of the educational system; universal availability; both united and differentiated approaches to choosing educational programs; the nurturing of talent; and integration of higher education and science.
In relation to the concept of developing professional education, the basic principles for the realization of governmental educational standards are; the fundamentalization, humanitarization, and humanization of secondary vocational and higher education; continuity in professional education; the teaching of skills for self-education; the flexibility of educational programs.
At every stage of continuous/lifelong education adequate targets, curricula, and methods must be selected. A professional orientation of school children is considered to be the first stage of pedagogical education,
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when produced within the limits of extracurricular work aimed at inculcating interest in professions amongst young people. The problem at this stage is the question of managing motives in the choice of profession; a question which can be solved positively if a scientifically founded vocational system is created, making use of psychological-pedagogical methods. Vocational education is currently carried out by means of cooperation towards stated aims between schools and pedagogical colleges and academic lyceums: the main focus here is not to impart simple information regarding particular careers; but to stimulate school leavers’ thoughts on their future personal decisions, both professional and non-professional. Continuity must be achieved at all other stages as well: secondary vocational education, higher education (both bachelor and master), further education and in the retraining of and upgrading of qualifications of pedagogical specialists.
The decree of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On further improvement to the system of retraining and higher qualification of pedagogical specialists” was issued with an aim to further improving the quality and quantity of the training, retraining and further qualification of pedagogical specialists, to strengthening educational-methodical and informational support, and to supplying educational establishments with highly-qualified pedagogical specialists. In this decree governmental requirements are approved regarding the improvement and retraining of pedagogic specialists; these requirements are the foundations for formulating educational plans and programs, as well as other documents, for regulating the educational process, and for maintaining control and value assessment with education.
Continuing to further qualification as a process of professional improvement and development ensures the continuity which makes up the connection and interdependence between all stages of education, curricula, educational technologies and so on. In the National Program for the Training of Pedagogical Specialists it is suggested that in order to organize and develop a system for retraining and further qualifying pedagogical specialists, it will be necessary to create and sustain both governmental and nongovernmental educational establishments, providing operative retraining and qualification in accordance with the demands of governmental and nongovernmental sectors of the economy and organizations and establishments of varying degrees of private ownership.
The standard scientific-methodical base for the educational stage of continuity must consist of the following: integrative governmental educational standards; educational plans and disciplinary programs providing inter-subject and inter-disciplinary communications;
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psychological-pedagogical compatibility between the methodical foundations of the educational process in educational establishments of various levels.
In the 21st century our society is experiencing an epoch of radical qualified change, an adequate reflection of the scientific and technical progress affecting all areas of humanity, including the system of pedagogical education. Nowadays preference is given to systems such as long-distance education, the practice of which has been made possible due to achievements in the field of communication technology. The system is based on a combination of modern communicational tools for the longdistance transmission of information and more basic educational tools (textbooks, audio-visual records), allowing the transformation of the classroom into a virtual educational space. Textbooks and books as a means of education are undergoing serious qualified change within the system of long-distance education. The application of electronic communications will radically alter the educational system, allowing us to prepare young people for life and work according to the conditions of a global information society.
However, the most important criteria of productivity for the professionalization of the individual are the ability to find personal significance in professional labor, and the ability to make decisions regarding one’s pedagogical activity. The main characteristics of an improvement in educational and professional self-determination are the formation of values and attitudes concerning the semantic meaning of one’s own existence. One of the essential characteristic of continuous education, and as a result an indicator as to level of education, is the treatment of the past in the context of the present with a focus on the future.
The actual content of pedagogic specialists’ retraining and further qualification is provided with a corresponding level of cognitive activity in accordance with the targets of the educational process within the system of further qualification. Moreover, this process of qualification is required to meet definite indicators within given time restraints. With a view to increasing the already high efficiency of the further qualification process, this process, and that of retraining, must be organized in such a way, that pedagogical specialists are able to draw on the full extensive range of technological advances.
A varied, complex approach is most expedient in developing curricula for the system of re-qualification, considering curricula formation in all vocational educational fields in unison.
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In today’s modern, dynamic conditions, the worldwide
individualization of education is also important. The bases for this are selfeducation and an understanding of the demands and necessary skills of independent acquisition of knowledge. Nowadays self-education and selftraining serve as the organizational and methodical foundations and aims of secondary vocational, higher and all further education (that is to say, education at any stage of one’s life). Today’s world requires specialists who can learn and re-learn, constantly better themselves and work creatively. In order to solve the problem of teaching self-educational skills, it is necessary to create flexible educational programs which consider a variety of disciplines and courses tailored to specialists’ requirements. Students can choose independently from different options for the variable parts of programs. The curriculum for modern pedagogical education is being formulated with a view to orientating people towards continuous education, pedagogical and professional self-improvement and reformulation of personality amongst future teachers to be able better to solve problems arising as during pedagogical work.
Thus, it is now vital to achieve modernization in the educational process, the characteristic feature of which would be an increase in quality of teaching due to the fundamentalization of education, the integration of educational disciplines, the intensification of inter-disciplinary connections, computerization, the combination of theory with practice and the informatization and individualization of education, which can only be realized under highly professional and pedagogically competent teachers.
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