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INTEGRATION IS ONE OF THE DEVELOPMENTAL CONDITIONS OF LIFELONG VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
Yu. A. Chitaeva
Lifelong education is a combination of public, private and other forms of educational institutions that provide organizational and comprehensive unity, continuity and interconnection of all parts of primary, secondary higher vocational training and retraining and takes into account the present and future social and economic needs, personal educational goals and opportunities of each person
In Russia, the process of developing the theory and practice of lifelong education has its own specific features, but at the same time, it has features common with other countries. Currently, no country in the world has a complete system of lifelong education, but the cumulative experience of countries that are guided by the idea of lifelong education helps to determine some essential features in the patterns of the new educational system, which is qualitatively different from the current one. The idea of lifelong education and training throughout life was put forward in the 1920s, and the concept of lifelong education began to take shape in the seventies as awareness of the importance of knowledge and its larger role in the education community. In the second half of 1980 Western European countries formed the conceptual basis of models of lifelong education. They studied the whole range of social, economic, political and institutional conditions under which it becomes possible to implement lifelong education. The structure, functions, goals and objectives of individual units and elements of the system and their interaction were also identified.
In the works of local scientists there are different views on the idea of lifelong education and its essence. In some cases, lifelong education is identified as continuous training when contradictions in the existing education system can be eliminated by the mechanical integration of all stages of the educational process. In other instances there is an idea of the possibility of establishing a system of lifelong education by supplementing existing educational system with new links of the chain.
Currently in Russia the development of lifelong education has a fundamentally different quality. This is due not only to the constantly updated social demands for professional skills of qualified workers and specialists, but also to the need to consider apparent individual personal motives for constant improvement of knowledge, skills and competencies to acquire new skills and professions in order to achieve one’s creative potential.
This requires reforming primary, secondary and higher vocational education, the establishment of integrated educational institutions, and the
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introduction of multi-level education. The lifelong nature of education involves integration of both leading trends in contemporary professional education. The most promising area of integration is the integration of primary and secondary vocational education and the creation of multi-level vocational education institutions that train skilled workers and specialists in a wide range of professions.
The introduction of federal state educational standards for professional education allows: (a) comprehensive and organizational integration in the formulation of vocational education of basic educational programs, (b) development of a variety of educational pathways for students in primary and secondary vocational establishments, etc.
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