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INSTITUTIONAL SPECIFIC FEATURES OF CONTINUING EDUCATION MODERNIZATION FOR CULTURE AND ART
I.G. Vasiliev
Continuing education in the culture and art sphere has a general and special content. The general content unites it with continuing education as a social process, and institution with the entire set of its social functions. The special content of continuing education in the sphere of culture and art, in particular, determines it as “the most continuous” kind of professional education. In many cases it starts in the family before the child enters formal schools in kinds of art, and finishes with the highest level of professional excellence of the specialist of the relevant specialization, only in case of (inter alia) the continuing completion of the three-stage system of professional education (schools in kinds of art, vocational schools, higher educational institutions) that has formed in our country over the decades. The gap between the stages practically brings the chances of achieving the purposes of educational efforts to zero. The process of continuity is also maintained, and retraining of the teachers’ works at each of the stages.
Continuity of professional development of teachers is ensured by studies of additional professional educational programs of at least 72 hours at least every five years in educational institutions licensed for the carrying out of educational activities. Teachers of educational institutions must carry out creative and methodological work. Depending on the specialization of the human resources and demands, educational institutions under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture are involved in retraining and professional development of the staff in various programs: from several to some dozens of programs. The major load is borne by the leading creative educational institutions of Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Central and Southern Russia, Urals, Siberia and the Far East. The duration of programs studies is from 72 to 500 and more hours. The list of the institutions and the number of programs maintained by them are given on the web-site of the Ministry of Culture of the RF.
The need for continuing reforming and modernization of the education system and the expediency of the measures taken has not been widely discussed since adoption of “Concept of Development of Art Education in the Russian Federation” and “Concept of Development of Higher Educational Institutions of Culture and Art of the Russian Federation (for the period until 2015)” adopted in December 2001. It was the Concept of 2008 that provided the preservation of the historically established 3-stage system of education in the culture and art sphere under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture of the RF. In December 2011, the Ministry of Culture of the RF adopted the legislative instruments confirming the priority of the Ministry of Culture in education management in the culture and art sphere, and ensuring continuity of pre-professional and professional education, in particular those related to development of education in the culture and art sphere for 2008 - 2015. Development of education in the culture and art sphere is identified as the major basis for art education in general and the fundamental part
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of the system of art education. The institutional version of education in the culture and art sphere developed in the Concept 2008 can be identified as the subinstitution of culture, its standards oriented to ensure the viability of culture as the basic social institution, with social functions assigned by society and the state. Education in the culture and art sphere is to ensure the fulfillment of the following tasks: (a) identification of artistically gifted children and young people as well as provision of appropriate conditions for their education and creative development;
(b) training of creative and teaching staff in the culture and art sphere as well as teaching staff for the system of art education; (c) keeping and handing down traditions of Russian professional education in the culture and art sphere to new generations; (d) aesthetic education of the new generation: (e) education of a prepared and interested audience of listeners and viewers; (f) introduction of Russian citizens to values of national and foreign art culture, the finest specimens of folk art, classical and modern art; (g) realization of the moral potential of art as a means of the formation and development of ethical norms of conduct and morals, both of the personality and society.
Despite their significance, the possibilities of legal regulation have limited influence. More than one hundred years ago, an outstanding surgeon, teacher and public figure N.I. Pirogov expressed an opinion illustrative in every respect: “Performing a drastic transformation of anything requires new people rather than new laws. Those sincerely wishing for genuine progress must not count on the actions of such measures as revision of statutes, distributions, etc. that do change things fast in their own right, but just the form of the thing rather than its substance. Meanwhile, the first and main condition of progress is a firm belief in the educational and creative force of the human personality. Without it, all fine spun statutes are a dead letter.”
Modern versions of the theory of social norms thoroughly analyze the situations when the legal norms of one culture are used in another culture. The experience of development and adoption of the law “On Education” is also applicable to education in the culture and art sphere, and shows that mechanical transfer of the norms of one culture that seems more advanced to reform initiators does not always prove successful. As distinguished from natural objects always demonstrating the same physical laws, socio-cultural objects as man-made objects are different with different peoples and different cultures. Interaction of legal cultures may result in the reception of legal texts, i.e. in the process of legal development, the texts modeling social institutions “here” can be borrowed from another legal culture. But these texts formulated in another culture reflect the social reality that does not yet exist, and is possibly not achievable “here”. The example of the post-Soviet reception of the texts of western legal culture in Russia confirms that even when supported by a certain political will of the central authority “here”, these texts do not automatically generate the social institutions modeled in them. There are also other reasons why social practice may deviate from its official models. The highest achievements of Russian culture primarily rely on the unique system of training creative and teaching staff in the culture and arts spheres. The efficiency of this system is confirmed by the high level of export of educational services of the art sphere, indicators of employment of young specialists -graduates of higher and secondary specialized educational institutions of arts in
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their specialty, recognition of the Russian school of training of creative workers in various kinds of arts by the world community, as well as the demand for teachers of Russian educational institutions of higher professional education in the arts sphere abroad.
The resources provision of the education system in the culture and arts sphere is still based on the developed network of state and municipal educational institutions including educational institutions of the extended education of children -kindergartens (by kinds of arts), educational institutions for specially gifted children that integrally implement programs of basic general secondary (complete) education and secondary vocational education, secondary special educational institutions - art, music, dance, theater, cultural-educational and other specialized vocational schools (colleges) either under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation and the Federal Education Agency or under the jurisdiction of subjects of the Russian Federation, universities, academies, institutes under the jurisdiction of the Government of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, the Federal Education Agency, the Russian Academy of Arts and local self-government bodies.
It should be added that educational programs of various levels in the area of “culture and art” are implemented in a number of non-specialized educational institutions both in the state and municipal, and the non-state sector. Such decentralization of management of educational institutions of the culture and art sphere as well as their separation from the industry is fraught with the reduced quality of education in this sphere. The system of professional education in the sphere of culture and art (school - vocational school - higher educational institution) that has been established for decades and rightly has one of the leading positions in the world, works steadily and effectively in the cases when educational institutions making up these three links are under the jurisdiction of culture management bodies.
The priorities of development of education in the culture and art sphere and the measures to achieve strategic objectives aimed at exercise of the citizens’ constitutional rights with regard to ensuring the freedom of creative work and participation in the country’s cultural life were stated in the report on the results and major lines of activity of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation for the period 2008-2010.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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