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7Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 1 (2015 8) 40-51
УДК 159.99
Freedoms and Constraints
of a Specialist's Training at the Modern Stage
of Higher Professional Education Development in Russia
Victor E. Pakhalian*
Moscow Institute of Open Education 7a Prechistenskiy Str., Moscow, 119034, Russia
Received 12.09.2014, received in revised form 09.10.2014, accepted 07.11.2014
The article analyses the issue of freedoms and constrains in practice of a specialist's training at the modern stage of higher professional education development in Russia. The use of such terms as 'profitability', 'service', 'level' is justified for the tendency to objectively evaluate higher professional education. These terms are regarded as the main ones to consider the issues of quality assurance of higher professional education (HPE), economic, and quantitative criteria. Professional methodology, which is the basis of a specialist's training process and optimal balance offreedoms and constrains in this activity, is given a special focus of analysis. The author singles out the issues of qualitative characteristics of a lecturer's professionalism, expertise of a specialist's professional activity in other specialists' training as well as the institute of experts.
Keywords: freedom and constrains in education, higher professional education (HPE), quality of HPE, methodology of HPE, professionalism, expertise of professional activity, expert.
Research area: pedagogy, psychology.
Analyzing the issue stated, it is vital to bear in mind that there are certain freedoms and constrains in any activity. They can be external and internal. The former are the following ones:
- juridical;
- connected with the activity's nature (activity requirements);
- connected with social attitudes (expectations, traditions, stereotypes, etc.);
- ethical (professionally ethical).
The latter are natural and personal ones. In the context of the present issue all human
capabilities, connected with his biology and genetic potential, are viewed as natural ones. As for the capabilities of a subject of social relations, or, in other words, a human able to focus on other people in his actions and behaviour, these are personal ones1.
As for the term 'freedom', in the context of this issue it will be used in P.Ya Chernykh's understanding:
"... originally the concept of freedom was associated with the idea of belonging to one's own group, family, generation, nationality - in other words, to one's own people" (Chernykh 1999, p. 148).
© Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
* Corresponding author E-mail address: vicp2007@yandex.ru
The term "constrains" will be understood as restrictions and boundaries, resulting from laws, normative acts, decisions of public bodies, ethic norms of a certain culture, profession, and limiting a subjects' activity.
The issue of the article contains several aspects, which can be briefly worded the following way:
1) formation of development practices always takes place at a time of certain political, economic, legal, etc. changes, which set a certain balance of freedoms and constrains. This is regulated both institutionally and by a subject (the subjects) who develops the environment and him/herself;
2) correlation of forms of development practices (collective and individual) depends on:
- the nature of constrains and freedoms, specific for each object and subject of development;
- the goals set, their content and hierarchy;
- possible (available) means.
3) training of specialists of "caring professions" at the modern stage of higher professional education in Russia is carried out under the conditions with a distinct disbalance between external and internal constrains, displaying the prevalence of the former and underestimation of the potential of the latter.
Freedoms and constrains in education
Forming and improving higher professional education as social practice, we cannot bypass the issues of its freedoms and constrains. As contrasted to natural environment the issue of boundaries (and, consequently, of "freedom, autonomy, sovereignty") in human culture is an important part of the issue of a personality development, a human's inner life. It is well-known that education is a social institute, training and introducing an individual to various spheres of a society's activity, accustoming him/her to the culture of this society. Educational institutions
implement a purposeful process of upbringing and education in the interests of a human, society, state. This process is accompanied by the statement of a student citizen's achievement of educational levels (educational qualifications) set by the state. The level of general and special education is determined by the manufacture demands, state of science, technology and culture, and public relations. In its economic sense education is a branch of economy, integrating establishments and enterprises which are involved in education, upbringing, knowledge transfer, educational materials publishing, teachers' and educators' training.
Freedoms and constrains in education are a subject of all participants' constant reflection (conscious and partially conscious) on educational interaction. Like in any other human activity, awareness and acceptance of its boundaries, opportunities are an important condition of control and effectiveness. The core of my report is the issue of setting the boundaries of "freedom - non-freedom", "autonomy -sovereignty" spaces in conditions of modern educational environments. In comparison with the situation in the end of the XX century and even the beginning of the XXI century these boundaries have been significantly changed for all subjects of educational environments (pupils, students; educators, teachers, parents, lecturers) both legally and psychologically. I'll try to dwell upon this issue's main aspects "from above", that is from the point of the element, which is nowadays termed as "higher professional education" (HPE).
The issue of principles, constituting the basis of the present reform of higher education, is actively discussed in Russia nowadays. The matter of what lies in the basis of the changes introduced is given a particular focus of attention.
Being one of social practice forms, higher professional education has symbolic and material
dimensions. Unfortunately, the latter is obviously on its leading position today. To understand the reasons for discussions about the reforms held it is necessary to analyze three main factors that determine HPE and are inseparably connected with each other. They are in a relationship of unity: economic, juridical and psychological-and-pe dagogical.
Analysis of recent publications shows that such terms as 'profitability', 'service', 'level', etc. are more often used today to evaluate the content, process and results of HPE in Russia in public. That's why it is vital to discuss the following issues:
- How legitimate (in the direct meaning of this word) is it to use these terms to objectively evaluate higher professional education?
- Is it correct to apply economic, quantitative criteria as the main ones to consider the issues of ensuring the quality of HPE?
Analysis of statutory and regulatory documents on education makes it just to consider the following documents to be the key ones. They provide legal foundation for training specialists with higher professional education. These are:
- The Federal Law "On Education in the Russian Federation" (dated 25.11.2013);
- Federal state educational standards of higher professional education (FSES);
- Order 499 of the Ministry of Education and Science "On Approval of the Order of organization and implementation of educational activity on the basis of extracurricular professional programmes" dated July 1, 2013.
The first document contains the section in which the main terms of this law are defined2. The analysis of the text shows that there is no such a term as 'profitability' in it. As for the term 'service', it is used only in combination with the adjectives 'state' or 'fee-based educational'. The
term 'level' is rather often used and represents one of the main concepts of this law (Article 2. Sections 5, 6; Article 5. Section 2; Article 15. Section 3.1.). However, it is not mentioned HOW this level is measured and WHO can measure it (who can be called an 'evaluator', expert).
Thus, the answer to the first question can be the following:
- it is not correct to use the term 'profitability' for objective evaluation of higher professional education as there are no normative grounds for this;
- the term 'service' can be used in cases of dwelling upon state obligations and extra-curricular (fee-based) educational activity;
- the term 'level' can be used as a qualitative characteristic of educational process, which reflects:
a) the process of an educational cycle completeness ("completed - non-completed");
b) compliance of knowledge, skills and competences with the Federal state educational standard ("compliance - non-compliance"); a subject's preparedness for a certain type of professional activity ("prepared - non-prepared");
c) degree ("super-degree" to be more exact) of success of educational resources of those individuals who showed outstanding abilities in learning and research activities, scientific-and-technical and artistic creativity, physical training and sport.
The second question runs: How legitimate is it to use quantitative criteria as the main ones to consider the issues connected with ensuring the quality of HPE?
Encyclopedia of philosophy gives the following definition of the concept of "quality": "Quality reflects a sustainable
relationship between an object's components
which characterize its specific nature,
giving the opportunity to distinguish between the objects. It is quality that determines an object's existence and its individual character, different from other objects. At the same time quality expresses that common which characterizes the whole class of homogeneous objects" (http://dic. academic .ru/dic. nsf/enc_philo sophy/509/% D0%9A%D0%90%D0%A7%D0%95%D0 %A1%D0%A2%D0%92%D0%9E). In the law considered the 'quality of education' term is defined the following way: ". quality of education is a complex characteristic feature of educational activity and a student's training, expressing the degree of their compliance with federal state educational standards, educational standards, federal state requirements and (or) a physical or juridical person's demands, in whose interests educational activity is performed, including the degree of achievement of an educational programme's planned results " (Article 2. Section 29).
The definition presupposes that quality is observed when "a student's educational activity and training" complies with the Federal State Educational Standard, "educational standards, federal state requirements and (or) a physical or juridical person's demands, in whose interests educational activity is performed".
This term is used in this law in a set of articles (Articles 5, 10, 11, 19, 28) in various contexts. It's important that these contexts emphasize the necessity of creating conditions for the citizens' quality education and designate institutions to control it.
It is obvious that a philosophic definition and the definition given in the law are not identical per se. For development practices it means that we should be guided by the latter. But in fact it runs about the 'level', not the quality as "the degree
of their compliance with federal state educational standards." is emphasized.
Dwelling upon the issue of freedoms and constrains, it should be pointed out that both are set normatively. Any specialist under the law can be both limited in his / her opportunities and free according to its provisions. For example: if I am guided by the law definition of "education quality", then, being a member of the higher education institution's staff, I will "automatically", "formally" do everything that complies with the requirements of the FSES. This is what constitutes my freedom: I am free from the quality in its philosophic sense. I can simply "adjust" everything to FSES or copy the required from somebody else who has already worked out this standard for me. In such a normatively set reality the word combination "standard of quality" sounds silly.
One more example can be given: the knowledge of law can lead to the feeling of own freedom as I base on its provisions, protecting myself from any opportunistic manipulations from the part of the leadership, and react calmly to the attempts to evaluate my professionalism by the ability to "provide services", qualitative indices of my profitability or any other parameters, thought out by someone else, as to the violation of law. At the same time I realize the constrains, imposed on me by the same law or by the institution's regulations, while choosing the place of work and vacancy. I am FREE in my choice.
A factor, which is conventionally called a 'pedagogical' one, is no less important. A professional methodology is meant here. It is in the basis of a specialist's training process. Those, who work out normative, economic terms for HPE development, cannot bypass a content aspect of teaching proper, etc. in case they strive for an optimal or highly effective result. Unfortunately, incompetence in methodological issues of teaching proper often
causes the educational leadership's decisions which significantly limit the freedoms of the development practices, recorded previously. Rather a new and illustrative example can show how incompetence in understanding of content aspects of teaching can influence the quality of education. Let it be the changes in the normative base of awarding academic degrees and titles.
In 2011 the government decree No. 475 "On introducing changes to the decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 74 dated January 30, 2002" (June 20, 2011) is issued in order to improve the evaluation of the specialists' scientific and teaching qualification. In December 2013 a new decree of the Government of the Russian Federation (Decree No. 842) is issued for the same purposes. What is the fundamental difference in these two documents?
Up to 2013 this normative base corresponded to main provisions of modern psychology, distinguishing between the abilities for scientific research and teaching. Since 2013 the idea of "a good researcher = a good teacher" has been the base of the Decree. Can two different groups of abilities and competences be equaled? This approach does not only lead to the confusion of concepts. It is not only dangerous with its consequences in terms of designation (selection and appointment of experts, which is to be discussed further). It significantly limits the practices of teaching development as it makes the specialists, able to teach, spend huge amount of time on different work, which is not only the means of increase of a formal status, but also enormously extends an employee's functions, requirements to the achievements.
This has resulted in my hypothesis: those who "evaluate" and "design" such documents are not able to work out the criteria of evaluation of a lecturer and the quality of his / her work above all. They probably follow the simplest (most formal) way: why search for a more complicated one if
there is a ready, easy way of formal quantitative measurements of a researcher:
- according to availability/absence of an academic degree;
- according to the number of scientific publications in a strictly regulated list of editions;
- according to citation indices, etc.
At that they do not differentiate between higher education institutions of various orientations and categories. There is hardly a person in Russia who does not know that conditions and requirements to educational results, lecturers and academic process organization in technical and humanitarian institutions of higher education are different; the opportunities of most capital educational institutions are obviously different from these of regional educational institutions, etc.
How can they be evaluated according to one criterion only?
Such a way can probably be more or less appropriate when everyone has approximately equal conditions. But today it is far from being so. That is why the most capable ones have always striven (and will always strive) for a fertile professional sphere with maximum possibilities of growth. It also increases inequality as there is an outflow of potentially strong specialists from "weak" regions. It turns out that now the state stimulates development practices in the environments with admittedly greater opportunities and poses problems for the environments with minimum opportunities. Having made the list of "inefficient higher education institutions" open to public, the state either intentionally or accidentally showed to the society the sharpness of the problem of differentiation of educational conditions in different regions, on the one hand, and the problem of inadequacy of evaluative tools for existing realities.
The most striking fact here is that qualitative characteristics of a lecturer's professionalism have been known and described long since. Moreover, they are presented in the Federal State Educational Standard as a part of a graduate's competences. Today they try to register them in professional standards (PS), though the necessity of their acceptance has been evident for 10 years already. A subsequent introduction of a certification procedure3 will make it possible to determine the levels of the existing quality. And here we face an "eternal question": "Who are the judges?"
Thus, it is necessary to make the following issues clear:
- Is there an "institute of experts" in the sphere of HPE?
- Is there an issue of an "expert's competences" development in the programme of a specialist's training?
- What are common criteria for choosing "experts" and what (what methodological grounds) are they based on?
The definitions of the term 'expert' are quite various and different in accuracy, concreteness, as well as in breadth and depth. But in most cases an expert is defined as "a specialist with sufficient experience and qualification for research, consultation, making judgments, conclusions, proposals, and expertise in one or another sphere". It should be noted that an expert is not universal. He is experienced and qualified in a certain sphere, in which he has become successful and got rich experience. How can we regard the mentioned above equality (a good researcher = a good lecturer) in this case? Is it incompetence, a methodological mistake, absurdity or a conscious move to "extend qualifications" for the purpose of economy? At this the Soviet pedagogical higher education institutions' practice comes from the depths of memory straight away. They consolidated the
departments into, for example, "history and philology department" or "social science, history and foreign languages department". As a result the graduates of these departments were a bit of social scientists, a bit of historians, they had some knowledge of a foreign language.
The scheme below seems quite interesting. It shows a set of professional growth:
student > trainee > specialist > > master > innovator > expert > creator.
It emphasizes that it is the expert who distinguishes between specialists', masters' and even creators' work. But as for a creator, he is not obliged to create.
I have failed to find a work with more or less clearly grounded (reasonable) and strictly prescribed (worked out) criteria which make it possible to "identify" an expert. In most cases the description of this phenomenon in some context (economic, scientific, legal, etc.) generally includes such characteristics as "high qualification", "rich experience in this sphere, on this issue", "the speed of making proper, efficient decisions". These parameters are of an ambiguous quantitative nature (high., rich., the speed.). The text of the Regulations on certification of experts in education in Tatarstan Republic (2008) serves a good illustration of this. It runs:
"The expert must have the following
characteristics:
- ability to carry out a complex comprehensive analysis of the activity of an employee, who is certified, the documents on relevant direction of an expert activity;
- abilities and opportunities for research in the area of education".
It should be emphasized that only the "abilities and opportunities" are mentioned in it.
The text of the Russian Federation Law points out the necessity of "authorized bodies of state authorities of the subjects of the Russian
Federation" in the education system structure to expertise educational activity, educational institutions, educational programmes, textbooks, etc. (Article 92 "State accreditation of the educational activity"). The text also clearly defines everything that is connected with "Educational expertise" (Article 94), "Independent evaluation of quality of education" (Article 95). There are special cases which define the requirements to both curricular and those who put them into practice (Article 82. Specific features of implementation of professional educational programmes of medical education and pharmaceutical education; Article 83. Specific features of implementation of educational programmes in the field of art; Article 84. Specific features of implementation of educational programmes in the sphere of physical training and sport; Article 85. Specific features of implementation of educational programmes in the sphere of training of specialists of civil aviation personnel, crew members in compliance with international standards, and in the sphere of training of railway workers responsible for train and shunting operations; Article 88. Specific features of implementation of educational programmes in basic general education curriculum in foreign institutions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation).
Thus, the Law makes it clear who should carry out the expertise (can be an expert), but is not precise in more or less specific signs of who can be called an expert. We have not enough grounds to define who can be an expert of the "quality of education", "quality of teaching", but we know who (what juridical persons) is allowed to carry out expertise in education. This state of affairs is observed against the background of existing Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Science and Education (Rosobrnadzor), Federal Institute of Education Development (which holds seminars on expertise of professional education programmes and issues certificates granting the
right for this expertise), Russian Academy of Education, All-Russian conferences of experts on evaluation of quality of education. Moreover, back in 2010 Vladimir Dmitrievich Shadrikov stated the following:
- a proper system of training the experts who must know what to evaluate and how to do this under the present day circumstances;
- the experts must be specially trained;
- there must be a special programme of their training.
We also have the National Guild of Experts in Higher Education (Aleksandr Podshebyakin, the president), but.
There is another important aspect of the issue discussed - any practice is monoprofessional. The most interesting ideas of a new practice are revealed in the "interdisciplinary field", in overcoming of borders of a narrowprofessional subject field of psychology. Classical university education presupposes readiness for this. In particular, there have always been both general and interdisciplinary courses which are not related to the subject proper. They make it possible to see a specific feature of the boundaries and the interdisciplinary field proper. However, the way it is manifested in practice and used in real professional community depends on the nature of the environment a specialist works in. In one environment a specialist finds him / herself in a narrow subject field where they are negative (and sometimes aggressive) towards all efforts "to overstep the boundaries". In another environment, it is the norm and it is positively stimulated as the most important part of a professional competence. From my point of view the latter cannot exist and develop where there are objective actualized demands (requirements) of the reality or where it is artificially organized by someone who realizes that nothing can happen without it.
Federal state educational standards of higher vocational education and professional / vocational standards (PS / VS) in the field of caring professions define the boundaries of a specialist's subject of work proper. At the same time they presuppose freedom in the meaning which is used in the discussions of this issue (Chernykh 1999, p. 148). It gives us hope that all specialists, being passionate about education issues, are not just performers of someone else's will but free (personally responsible) humans who realize their involvement in common affair. That is why they always manage difficulties in their work.
One more aspect of the discussed issue is reflected in the statement containing the idea that specialists of caring professions at the present stage of higher vocational education development in Russia are trained under the circumstances with the disbalance of external and internal constrains, manifesting itself in obvious prevalence of the former and underestimation of the potential of the latter.
As it follows from numerous works on HPE and further HPE issues, modern methodology of a professional training of the specialists of "caring professions" presupposes being personality centered. Moreover, it naturally regards training of specialists in the field of practical psychology. Still it's hard not to agree that this field still faces "the primacy of the object of learning - content of knowledge - for a subject" (Liaudis, 2000). Most methodological support of a practical psychologist's vocational training neither focuses on a future specialist's personality4 nor presupposes a personality's potential actualization. Thus, in its turn it does not form "the zone of a personality's prospective development" (Ibid.).
At the same time numerous publications about the issues on adults' vocational training and efficiency of education make it evident
that education centricity on future specialists' personalities is an integral part of their training5. In particular, one of the main principles of such training is reference to the students' personal experience. It is obvious that it is essentially important for a practical psychologist's training to make a future specialist aware of his / her experience as it will help him /her to evaluate his / her own resources and efficiently use them for self-actualization in the career chosen. In the works by Russian psychologists, focusing on the professionalism issue, they note the importance of knowledge about oneself (reflections, "personal competences", etc.) which is a sine qua non of the achievements. Awareness in the subject field of labour, knowledge and operational components of the activity, including the skills of self-regulation of actions and psychological states6, are commonly known as necessary components of professionalism.
The issue discussed also leads to the importance of focusing on the fact that a human is an open non-linear self-developing system. As a subject he is capable of multi-variability of transformations not of the world only but first and foremost of him / herself7. Obviously, the higher the level his / her psychological maturity is the more natural and full this capability is. It's important to be noted here that psychological maturity is an integrative component of "a personality's topmost education", his / her psychological culture (Semikin 2002). A low level of the latter is incompatible with full-fledged acquisition of a profession in the field of caring professions and is not inadmissible for those who teach future professionals for this field (I.V. Dubrovina, V.A. Karnaukhov, V.V. Semikin, T.V. Chernikova, et al.). Most aspects of this issue are included in the context of works on the discussion of general problems of a personality's maturity (Portnova 2008; Rusalov 2006; Shamionov 1997; et al.). The specialists of the University Psychological
Service make their contribution in order to solve this aspect of the problems of education in the higher vocational education system.
Hence a possible strategy of overcoming an existing gap (clash) becomes clear:
- a personality-centered character of the education process;
- a normative consolidation of a practical psychologist's job characteristic features and introducing them to the content of work of those who are involved in career guidance, training and selection;
- including of what can be provisionally nominated as "personal competence" into the list of competences of FSES for caring professions.
However, the focus of the issue discussed is not mainly on general problems of HVE but on training of specialists of caring professions which are more often associated with social work, social psychology, practical psychology. It is important to emphasize here once again: difficulties in training of specialists of "caring professions" are to a large extent determined by the nature of education results of schooling and up-bringing (and by education results of previous university education and up-bringing in case of extracurricular HVE): insufficient level of psychological readiness for higher vocational education and mastering of a profession chosen. These difficulties can be overcome in a complex manner, mainly by the change of nature of school and university education; tasks of a psychological service of educational establishments. The latter requires the realization of "a personality-centered education" in an academic process (K. Rodgers) with the subjects of interaction, regarded as partners in the dialogue (M.M. Bakhtin, V.S. Bibler, M. Buber), and self-value and equivalence as recognized characteristics. This process obviously presupposes a certain level of psychological maturity of the subjects
of learning-and-professional activity and, consequently, a certain level of psychological culture. The process of training of adults as future specialists in providing psychological assistance presupposes psychologically mature subjects ready for a constructive interaction, initially united by the communication event in which some "breakthrough" of personalities towards each other happen.
In the context of problems of psychological pedagogy of HVE this can be conceptualized as "a personality's readiness for conscious, voluntary changes of norms and manners of his / her own behaviour under the special requirements of educational environment of a higher educational institution". The latter makes it possible to draw the following conclusions:
1) psychological readiness8 for a practical psychologist's higher vocational training is one of educational results of existing schooling and upbringing (an educational result of previous higher educational training and upbringing in case of extra-curricular higher vocational education).
2) higher vocational education implies a certain level of a future specialist's readiness for it not only on the level of knowledge, study skills and abilities but, on the whole, a personality's readiness9 for a qualitatively different stage of activity and mastering of a profession. Primarily it concerns the nature of motivation and practice of independent activity;
3) in the context of the issue discussed one of the tasks of a school or university psychological service is determination and development of a future specialist's inner resources, their correspondence with the requirements to his / her personality proper.
It should be noted that choosing a future career a human is sensitive to a personality's development and formation. It is also important for solving the problems of psychology of
training and upbringing of future specialists in the field of caring professions that this process presupposes not only "acquisition" and "assignment", but also "development" and "self-development" of a personality who is known to be the "main tool" of effective activity in professions of such a kind.
Thus, summing up the discussions of the issue, the following conclusions can be made.
1. The issue of freedoms and constrains in a specialist's training at a modern stage of higher vocational education development in Russia is not sufficiently advanced and vaguely represented in scientific, methodological and practice-targeted publications.
2. Determination of an optimal balance of freedoms and constrains in a specialist's training at the modern stage of higher vocational education development in Russia requires a well-grounded methodological study of the issues which are connected with the content of:
a) available normative documents;
b) scientific, methodological and practice-targeted recommendations for the specialists and those who organize education;
c) conceptions of education development and specialists' training.
The main aim of this article is to bring them in line with essential characteristic features of the education process proper, teaching in higher education institutions, expertise of this process and quality of training those who put it into practice.
3. Organizers of the reforms in Russian higher vocational education are not given sufficient attention so far, methodological grounds of psychology and pedagogy of higher school in working out of the conceptions, targeted at substantial changes in education and adoption of normative acts, are undervalued or ignored.
4. In modern Russian education there are not enough legal and scientific grounds for the definition of the main point of the concept "expert" and, consequently, the criteria for identifying who can be an expert of the "quality of education" as well as of the "quality of teaching".
5. The following should be introduced to normative documents on practical psychologists' training in the system of HVE and further HVE:
- qualification requirements of FSES should be added with the characteristics of persons trained in the context of the necessity to define their psychological maturity;
- these characteristics should be included in the list of job characteristics of a practical psychologist's personality and work of those who are involved in the sphere of vocational guidance, training and selection.
6. Our analysis show that nowadays the mentioned above normative, methodological and methodical imperfections cause serious troubles in solving problems of future specialists and in manpower policy in HVE system.
1 Hereinafter a "personality" will be referred to in V. A. Ivannikov's understanding: a personality is "a human who is able to focus on other people in his attitudes to the world, society and himself and chose activities and actions with their obligatory moral evaluation, changing (if necessary) his activity and himself through volitional regulation of activity and actions and intentional change of hierarchy of values (needs, motives, principles of life)" (Ivannikov V.A. Osnovy psikhologii [Bases of psychology]. Moscow, Piter, p. 168).
2 Article 2. The main concepts dwelt upon in this Federal law.
3 Certification is confirmation of compliance of an object's qualitative characteristics with the existing standards. This procedure is intended for the evaluation of the level of this or that competence. It is worked out as adjusted for peculiar features of the specialists' professional activity.
4 Hereinafter a "personality" will be referred to in V.A. Ivannikov's understanding: a personality is "a human who is able to focus on other people in his attitudes to the world, society and himself and chose activities and actions with their obligatory moral evaluation, changing (if necessary) his/her activity and himself through volitional regulation of activity and ac- 49 -
tions and intentional change of hierarchy of values (needs, motives, principles of life)" (Ivannikov V. A. Osnovy psikhologii [Bases of psychology]. Moscow, Piter, p. 168).
Alekseev N.A. Lichnostno-orientirovannoe obuchenie; voprosy teorii i praktiki [Personality-centered education; issues of theory and practice]. Tyumen, Izdatel'stvo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1996. Gumanisticheskie tendentsii v razvitii nepreryvnogo obrazovaniia vzroslykh v Rossii i SShA [Humanistic tendencies in the development of adults' lifelong education in Russia and the USA]. Ed. by M.V. Klarina, I.N. Semenova. Moscow, ITPiMIO RAO, 1994; Brookfield S. (ed.) Self Directed Learning: From Theory to Practice. San Francisco, Jossey-Basa, 1985; Cross P. Adults as Learners. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1980; Mezirow J. A Critical Theory of Self-Directed Learning, etc.
See, for example: Klimov E. A. Idealy kul'tury i stanovlenie sub'ekta professional'noi deiatel'nosti [Ideals of culture and a professional subject's formation]. Psikhologicheskii zhurnal, Vol. 26, 3, p. 99; Markova A.K. Psikhologiiaprofessional-izma [Psychology of professionalism]. Moscow, 1996. P. 5; 34-39.
Iurina E.A. Problema sub'ektnosti v psikhologicheskom obrazovanii [A subjectivity problem in psychological education].
Psikhologiia obrazovaniia f XXI veke: teoriia i praktika: materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii (Psychology of education in the XXI century: theory and practice: Proceedings of the International conference). Volgograd, 2011, pp. 124-126.
Hereinafter the psychological readiness will be understood as a certain state of a human's inner world (cognitive, affective, regulative components on the whole), facilitating or impeding his/her self-actualization as a personality in all aspects of life important for him / her (in work, communication, etc.). This is a peculiar sensitivity to a new "inner position" (L.I. Bozhovich).
Hereinafter our understanding of a personality's readiness will be based on the definition of "a personality" given above. In compliance with it this term will mean such a level of a human's development when he / she is able to make decisions and take the responsibility, acting consciously, voluntarily, one way or another solving problems he faces under the conditions of independent and cooperative activity while taking into consideration people around him / her, cultural norms and rules of behaviour.
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Свободы и ограничения подготовки специалиста
на современном этапе развития
высшего профессионального образования в России
В.Е. Пахальян
Московский институт открытого образования Россия, 119034, Москва, Пречистенский пер., 7а
Проведен анализ темы свобод и ограничений, существующих в практике подготовки специалиста на современном этапе развития высшего профессионального образования в России. Обсуждается правомерность использования понятий «рентабельность», «услуга», «уровень» при стремлении объективно оценивать высшее профессиональное образование; корректность использования в качестве основных при рассмотрении вопросов, связанных с обеспечением качества ВПО, экономических, количественных критериев. Анализируется проблема профессиональной методологии, которая положена в основу осуществляемого процесса подготовки специалиста и оптимального баланса свобод и ограничений в этой деятельности. Выделены проблемы качественных характеристик профессионализма преподавателя и экспертизы профессиональной деятельности специалиста, осуществляющего подготовку специалистов, а также института экспертов.
Ключевые слова: свобода и ограничения в образовании, высшее профессиональное образование (ВПО), качество ВПО, методология ВПО, профессионализм, экспертиза профессиональной деятельности, эксперт.
Научная специальность: 13.00.00 - педагогические науки, 19.00.00 - психологические науки.
