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IMAGE OF THE EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION AS A FACTOR OF ENSURING CONTINUING EDUCATION
E. N. Kovaleva
This article contains the results of research of legitimate stakeholders' perception of universities - entrants, students, business community; society's and the state's ideas about a perfect university were summarized. The importance of creating a positive image of a university for implementing the lifelong education concept in Russia is considered.
Key words: higher education establishment, stakeholders, image, perception, lifelong education.
The tertiary sector of education, whose main objective in the sphere of providing educational services is the transfer of knowledge, skills and habits as well as formation of professional competences, is the most important link in the system of continuous education at the domestic level. On how the higher education in general and the separate educational organizations in particular are apprehended, in many respects depends on the demand for educational services of post-degree education and professional retraining. In Russia, the segment of the market of educational services regarding post-degree education is developing dynamically. According to D. R. Borodina's researches in 2010, about 5 million employees of the organizations completed additional vocational education in the Russian Federation. However, in this segment there is a high potential of unrealized demand, as witnessed by a number of researches.
Thus, we should not consider continuous education only from economic positions, as the potential of the development of the system of higher education provides existence and development of the educational organizations of the higher education. Formation of the concept of education during all one’s life is capable of changing a vector of society’s development, creating the conditions for a humanistic orientation of improvement of an individual and of society in general. After L. P. Voronkova and others, we will assume that "only on the ways of humanization of education, formation of ecological consciousness, moral judgment of ways of development, prospects of science and equipment of people can approach new life, new culture, and a new education system....» However, modern realities are such that a considerable part of potential the listeners of programs of additional education do not perceive higher education institutions as the organizations aimed at the satisfaction of the inquiries of the stakeholders, and capable of creating long-term relations with groups of interested parties. Owing to various circumstances, there aren’t enough internal resources of higher education institutions which are still compelled to meet the requirements of the most important stakeholder from the point of view of the higher education institutions - to be exact the State - looks to correspond to license and accreditation criteria, and to fulfill the requirements of the legislation, which has undergone cardinal changes in the recent years. The formation of the image of a higher education institution as stakeholder-focused, which has its unique profile, is the realized task, but this is a task that the Russian higher education institutions would rather not fulfill yet. Thus,
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the perception of a modern higher education institution by the stakeholders does not promote the implementation of the concept of continuous education by higher education institutions - as a result, the problem of the formation of the image of the educational organization of higher education plays a significant role in the formation of a society ready for training throughout life.
Relying on the process of formation of an image which, according to S. I. Nekrasov, passes three stages ("the first is studying the requirements of society, the second is modeling significant image characteristics, and the third is the translation of the chosen characteristics in visual and verbal contexts", the model of formation of the image of the educational organizations of the higher education can be updated. For understanding what criteria can be used as the basis for the formation of the image of the educational organization, research with application of content analysis of the stakeholders' essays, and deep interviews with representatives of the business communities of the region were organized. In total, 67 essays by entrants and students of higher education institutions in Smolensk, and 83,654 lexemes were analyzed. 21 interviews with representatives of the regional business were organized. The analysis of the lexemes used by stakeholders when writing the essays allowed us to construct the next image of the ideal higher education institution of the regional level, which, according to the perception of entrants: "the higher education institution, with a wide range of educational programs having the license and accreditation, being in territorial proximity from the place of residence, providing affordable prices for educational services; the higher education institution has to give help in the choice of an educational program, explaining the specifics of future professions". The analysis of the received essays allows us to draw the following conclusions. The lexemes characterizing cognitive components of perception of the researched object (87,4%), reflection of affective components is presented in 5.7% of lexemes, to which were attributed emotionally painted adjectives, nouns and modal verbs. 7.9% is possible to attribute to cognitive (verbs of motion, parts of nouns and adjectives) lexemes. The provided data suggest that the relation of entrants to a potential place of study has a more rational character, and in connection with this, a special impact can be made on the information, coded by means of the symbolical sign system, based on a rational component of information - for example, on the list of the realized educational programs, and the existence of the license and of the accreditation, existence of the programs of a double diploma. However, in our opinion, a hypothesis of the importance of the application of all symbolical structures (natural, iconic, symbolical), and involvements of all the components of perception can't be considered as insolvent, because 100% of the respondents confirmed that they didn't take part in any event organized by a higher education institution for entrants, such as Olympiads, competitions or quests, when affective and cognitive components of the perception of higher education institution weren't involved.
Students imagine the ideal higher education institution somewhat differently: "it is the prestigious, modern, affordable university creating the ideal atmosphere for training and scientific activity by means of cozy comfortable surroundings in the building and on the territory, the light and well equipped audiences, extensive library, and computer classes equipped with the modern equipment. Training
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programs are formed, taking into account the wishes of students who have the right to choose the disciplines interesting to them, with an emphasis on practical activities, provided with contracts with the best enterprises in the region. The higher education institution must give an opportunity to learn, to travel, and to be trained in other higher education institutions. It is the higher education institution, where professional teachers work, benevolent and sympathetic, devoting themselves to their work, but showing insistence to students. Except the classroom occupations, under their management, different hobby groups, sections, creative groups promoting self-realization of students are to be organized. An important part of a student's life is the possibility for self-expression, feelings of importance, and of respect in relation to itself. The higher education institution has to possess identity, soul, and be the place where the student feels comfortable and where he wants to come every day. Only in these conditions, can all the abilities of the student be revealed". The analysis of the lexemes used in the essay allows the drawing of the following conclusions. Most often, we meet the lexemes characterizing cognitive components of perception. However their percentage is considerably lower, in comparison with the statements of entrants (62.3%), reflection of affective components is presented in 17,4% of lexemes, and 18,3% can be carried to the cognitive. The provided data suggest that for internal stakeholders, and in particular for students, great importance is gained by affective and cognitive components of perception, that assume the use of other ratios of symbolical structures, and the means of communication when forming a positive image of the higher education institution and of an educational program.
The perception of activity of higher education institutions by the public is important. Field research in this case wasn't conducted purposefully as during a preliminary search investigation phase by means of deep interviews, it was revealed that the main part of respondents (61%) assumed that education as formation of the personality in the country isn't of great importance for the present stage of development of the economy. Primary are the factors of the formal existence of the diploma about higher education, which helps in employment. The respondents expressed an opinion on existence of a big gap in the essence of the knowledge provided by the higher education institution, and the practical activities; in connection with this, it is essential for graduates to obtain the diploma as a credential document, which is as a document confirming the presence of a higher education. In this regard, it is not possible to offer a poll of this segment of stakeholders and be guided by the offered opinion, that the higher education institution is the organization with special, socially important, future-focused purposes and tasks. As initial parameters of an ideal higher education institution are offered as the qualities demanded by the modern society in the next 65 years (which were formulated by the experts of UNESCO in 1990-1992 for next 90 years), on this basis the image of the ideal higher education institution from a position of the society, aspiring to humanization and sustainable socially oriented development, was presented. Therefore the image of higher education institution in the perception of the public, can be presented as follows: "higher education institution which activity is directed on formation of the experts, capable to active actions according to the solution of the ecology problems of the environment; to creation of ecology of relationships; orientation to a healthy lifestyle; orientation to
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the institute of the family; orientation to positive moral ideals; patriotic relation to the country, to the hometown, to the house; demonstrations of the elements of spiritual experience which are not relates to direct activity, to judgment of the world and its manifestations; with internal social settings of successful market participants”.
Business community and consumers of additional educational services in the sphere of tertiary education have offered the next ideal image of a higher education institution: "a higher education institution has to pay bigger attention to practical tasks in professional area, to involve the highly skilled teachers having experience of practical activities, owning modern interactive techniques of teaching to cooperate with the organizations and the enterprises in the sphere of implementation of joint projects, to create joint network projects".
For the state, as for one of legitimate stakeholders, the image of the ideal higher education institution can be conceptualized proceeding from standards of legislation: implementation of license and accreditation requirements, and compliance with the law in the field of education, ensuring of safety and rights for incapacitated students.
Formation of the concept of continuous education is impossible without a systematic approach to understanding the purposes of key stakeholders of the organizations, who are presented not only by government bodies of system management (one of stakeholders), but also some others, not less significant: entrants, students, graduates, employees, and the business community. The perception by the key stakeholders of the activity of the educational organizations is an important indicator not only of the current situation and of the development of the system of higher education, but also a key to understanding the strategic and operational planning of the activity of higher education institutions, in order to achieve the optimum trajectory of development, to meet the modern requirements of Russian society, and international standards of life through the formation of the necessity for continuous education, and providing the conditions for the satisfaction of such requirements.
References
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4. Бородина Д.Р. Организации дополнительного образования взрослых на рынке образовательных услуг: стратегии руководителей. Информационный бюллетень. - М.: Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики», 2014. - 44 с.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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