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12SOCIAL SCIENCES
OPPORTUNITIES AND BARRIERS TO THE INNOVATION OF SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN
EDUCATION IN RUSSIA
Malikova N.
Doctor of social sciences, Professor of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation (Moscow)
Abstract
This paper presents the recent problems and social effects of interactive learning, its benefits and constraints on its application. Innovation contributing to a higher quality of learning during the reform of national education systems has become a crucial task for the Bologna Process implementation. But there are still problems with affordability of high-quality education in the humanities and social sciences as well as with formation of future-oriented "advanced" consciousness of students instead of "retarded" consciousness. Participatory learning model with partial substitution of "reproducing learning", implementing innovative tools and methods in learning process, encouraging democratization and decentralization of educational control, does not receive support and come into wide use due to functioning of administrative-command system of education organization in Russian universities. Consequently, there is still no balance between traditional system of education and demands on the labor market, also there is non-conformance to the level of International European cooperation directly in education in the humanities and social sciences.
Keywords: innovations of sociological education, interactive forms of education, social effects and deficiencies of university education, "traditional reproducing" education, participatory model of education.
In the context of globalization, the discussions of the prospects for the development of education, laid down by the reports of the Club of Rome, are again topical and debatable. Its founder A. Peccei believed that achievement of social effects necessary for the whole humanity, is possible first of all by changing the human qualities, developing the "new humanism", so that people with different educational background could grasp the meaning of world problems. [Peccei: 128-129]
In 1979, J. Botkin (USA), Mahdi Elmandjra (Morocco) and MirceaMaleca(Romania), by publishingthe paper called "No Limits to Learning", set priority tasks for the disclosure of educational potential for reducing social, educational and cultural differences between countries, and for the analysis of advanced socio-hu-manistic problems. They urged all of us to pay attention to the need for the reformation of the national systems of education according to the recent global concerns, to develop innovations, toimplement advanced social technologies in the learning process. There is a large social need for the formation of future-oriented "advanced" consciousness of students instead of "retarded" one. In other words, not passive adaptation to past values, but ability to participate actively in the establishment of values which facilitate the movement to the sustainable social growth.
In 1996, in the UNESCO paper called "Education: Hidden Treasure" the critical role of education not only in society, but in development of human personality was outlined. However, then and now there is still a global problem of social inequality and accessibility of quality education. No wonder that the key vector of Bologna reforms is the guarantee of the high quality of higher education. Each stage of Bologna Process development improves the understanding of the fact that it is
the quality of education, particularly of one in humanities and social sciences that could bring the country to the cutting edgein the field of scientific studies and enhance its competitive advantage.
In this context, the results of the study of the competitiveness of Russian education are indicative. In October 2017, the dean of the Faculty of Economics, Moscow State University, Alexander Auzan, wrote an introductory speech to the study of the transnational consulting company Boston Consulting Group. In the BCG report, experts concluded that more than 80% of Russia's able-bodied population does not have the skills and competencies to work in modern markets, and there is no demand for knowledge in the country itself. Highly skilled work, classified as "knowledge" (intellectual work, creative and non-professional tasks), only 17% of the population are employed. This is 1.5 times less than in Japan or the US, 1.7 times less than in Germany; twice lower than Singapore and 2.6 times UK. The system of Russian higher education clearly does not cope with the task: education is not conducive to a career, does not constitute the basis of social success, education is replaced by graduation, and professionalism is the ability to get settled and adapt. As a result, 91% of Russian employers believe that graduates lack practical skills, and 83% perceive the level of training in universities as medium or low. In the 1990s, there was a lot of a linden proposal in the educational market. In the end, there was a colossal overproduction of people with incomplete diplomas. Human capital outstripped the resources of the national economy of our country. We have accumulated this capital both now and in the late Soviet period intelligent and educated people and threw them out, pushed abroad. The BCG report sparked wide discussion. A lot of accusations
were brought to the participants of the study in "forcing" and even "excessive pessimism" [Auzan, 2017]
Both the university community and the whole educational community met the joining of Russia to the Bologna process with a mixed reaction. Why is there still some latent opposition to the international integration? Do rigid forms of resistance to international standards of integration of national education systems reflect the specific character of the Russian educational system? It seems that they reflect institutional differences from the European system of education. Unfortunately, problems appear over joint participation of professors and students in education quality assurance, in impartial assessment of education quality, in accreditation of knowledge. These problems are the consequence of the sustaining rudiments of hardly the best traditions in the prescriptive and administrative education system management. The following problems are typical of the Russian Federation:
• still a low degree of integration of Russia in European educational system;
• the failure of educational standards to meet the current requirements;
• absence of open assessment of educational work;
• poor competitiveness, generational and regional differences between levels of qualification of professors and teachers;
• non - effective mechanisms of resources provision for educational innovations.
How do the things stand in terms of innovative knowledge promotion, cross-disciplinary integration, implementation of modern advances in humanities and social sciences during the learning process?
For me, a sociology professor, the closest problems are those connected with reproduction of sociological knowledge so that the discussion about concerns of providing high quality sociological education in terms of globalization couldn't leave me indifferent. Are techniques and methods of higher school education and training of students suitable to highly complicated tasks of modern social transformation? The need to include and spread the variety of innovative methods in teaching humanities and social sciences is obvious for me. The need to include and expand the variety of innovative methods in teaching humanities and social sciences is obvious for me. I would like to try to share my opinion based on my humble experience of teaching a number of sociological courses and subjects in leading Russian universities.
The primary motivation for my teaching profession from the mid-90s up to now has been the focuson the learning model which suggests partial substitution of traditional, "reproducing learning" didacticswith active incorporation of tools and methods of "innovative learning"into the educational process. In addition to the intensity of acquiring any scope of knowledge, they stimulate students to actively respond to current problems connected with social, economic, politic, cultural and spiritual aspects of life. The most effective way to organize such strategy of the process of learning is to rely on "participatory approach".
Participatory (from the word "participation") is a reflexive way to give people the ability and power to take efficient actions in order to make their lives better by means of intelligence. Participatory approach in education is the "cooperative learning", it is founded on the idea that students also have critical thinking and ability to analyze, that their knowledge is meaningful and valuable for the understanding of social development. Moreover, teachers and students get the responsibility both for the production of knowledge and the usage of it. Participatory approach provides a number of techniques for the development of democratic methods of control in education. In this model, a professor is rather a moderator of discussion, an instructor who gives motivation, learning tasks, and students do search by themselves, then they generalize and present information. The professor interferes only when the students need to consult. This method is successfully used for those classes in humanities and social sciences, where there is a need for the development of independent critical thinking, skills of individual and team work, responsibility and interest in acquiring ew knowledge, where the experience of self-discoveries, standing up for their standpoint and changing the opinion, is crucial. This is the way active participation of students in acquiring the basics and skills of planning their educational process is formed. Besides, additional goals are achieved in order to enhance both intellectual and leadership potentials. For example, in sociology classes held in the training workshop format, the organization of co-participation in discussion of current social problems is efficient. Wide usage of interactive methods of analyzing situations in question during the learning process gives some social and educational effects. Firstly, it is the classroom organization.Some elements of "case study" techniques, "social expertise", debates, disputes, "brainstorming", event-analysis, modeling, role playare implementedduring workshops. Consequently, students not only actively acquire knowledge, but also grow into projective social roles and statuses. There is always rotation between the roles of leader, opponent, speaker, and arbitrator. Many years of university practice demonstrate that the process of participatory discovery and making decisions summoned up the students to adopt social changes and innovations with higher willingness.
Sociologists and our colleagues in related fields of social science were right in criticizing higher education commercialization and organization of knowledge assessment for secondary school graduates by means of the Unified State Exam/USEsystem. The minimization of the "humanitarian" component in the assessment of knowledge and expertise, domination of rationalism, insufficient attention to the development of the segment of socially important knowledge about the society, based on the understanding and interpretation of modern social processes, events, social and cultural phenomena, has actually lead to the decline in the quality of education. Unfortunately, I have met, even among the students of the first, leading university of our country - Lomonosov Moscow State University, those ones who entered the University on the basis of the USE results (it is not impossible that it also happened due
tohidden corruption) and did not have elementary skills of sensible presentation, they even couldn't simply retell the information, which they unthinkingly had downloaded from the Internet, from Wikipedia. A little better, but also not impress the competence of students of the Russian Humanitarian University and the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation. The situation is exacerbated if the administration obliges to conduct examinations and tests in writing, thereby fixing the shortcomings of sociological interpretation, the formation of analytical and critical thinking among students. We had to compensate this by permanent organization of interactive trainings of social skills at the workshops.It is necessary when first-year students, who've only just left school, experience the lack of basic social knowledge and skills. Participation in the training is based on the next procedures:
• Modeling: represents the demonstrating examples (models) of appropriate behavior.
• Role play: gives students an opportunity to imagine them selves in a situation when the realization of basic skills is needed and toput into practice what they have learned during the modeling.
• Feedback: can be combined with role playand modeling, in the form of reactions, generally positive, to their behavior (awards and encouragement for desirable social behavior)
• Applicationof skills gained during case studiesin real life: learning the basic principles that are appropriate anytime and anywhere, which are typical of real life situations.
Innovations, interactive learning methods have gained new informative dimension and attribute in response to the execution of learning projects in post-modernity and have become a "marketable intellectual product".Due to the wide introduction and promotion of the world wide web- the Internet, a radically new form of competition on the international market of educational services has appeared. Nevertheless, support for the improvement of the distance learning part in Russian speaking segment of the Internet / Runet is still not enough. In addition, the scope of participation of Russian financial sources and businesses structuresis subtle and not comparable with the situation in developed European countries. This is a paradox, since this segment of education is attractive for large commercial structures and transnational financial and industrial corporations, who are willing to invest in training, target training, retraining thus ensuring the reduction of state control over education.
I remember that back in 1989, a group of industrialists published a report called "Education and Competence in Europe." It claimed that education and training should be regarded as a "vital strategic investment in the future success of the enterprise." There was a regret that they were still regarded as an internal affair of the public authorities and that the industry has very little impact on the training programs. It was argued that financial, industrialand educational institutions must work in cooperation to improve learning programs and distance learning might help them, but it needs the development of appropriate technology and software. In
1990, the European Commission adopted a working paper entitled "Distance Education and Training", which stated that education is particularly interesting from the point of view of the cost efficiency in education.
Later, the documents of the European Commission were characterized by a strong trend to consider "open universities" of distance education as companies which are run by the laws of demand and supply, offering the consumer a new type of product.
So that students become customers, and training courses become products. However, among the Russian professors, such an interpretation of the modern role disposition was perceived as an offensive alternative for the long time irrelevant, but still desirable presentation in the 19th century poetical metaphor: "Master, let me humbly bend the knee in front of you". But in the virtual space of distance education, such expectations are unlikely to be reasonable.
In 1996, UNESCO held a meeting in Philadelphia (USA), where it was mentioned that the "continuity of education cannot be ensured by permanent teacher's presence". It must be ensured by the provider of educational services. In order to create favorable conditions for the development of distance education, the programs called "Leonardo da Vinci" and "Socrates" were launched, they had multi-billion budgets and were aimed at developing the system of "continuing education throughout life and new forms of preparation" in order to "make getting knowledge at home EU-wide". The prospect of liberalization in education, development of distance education guarantees huge profits to the private sector from the sale of hardware, software, electronic networks operation. It is possible that this strategy should not only lead to the state when education complies with the demands of the modern economy, but also to providing high quality preparation for interactive communicative collaboration in the global network.
It is possible that a fundamentally different form of interactive learning within virtual space of communication with multimedia content will reduce functional education costs. Nevertheless, there is always a concern about to what extent this virtual separation of students and teachers can ensure the acquisition of fundamental knowledge, without the spread of the IT-depending "mosaic thinking" phenomenon and problems with getting skills of scientific knowledge, which is the main goal for training highly qualified specialists.
The benefits of distance education are more obvious for those who improve their skills independently, because such a method reduces expenses on education. A virtual interactive learning project emerges that is meant to createa broad system of private and commercial education on the periphery of public education, which is reduced to the basic standard. However, there is an important problem connected with legal regulation which is still not resolved and obstructs the implementation of this project, because commercial education and qualifications recognition are under the state jurisdiction. As a result, the initiative of the European Commissiont hat offers personal "accreditation of knowledge cards" from different Internet suppliers of educational programs remains unimplemented.
It is expected that with the development of education suppliers will provide student with an individual credit for the knowledge he possesses. This accreditation will be recorded on a floppy disk, on a job search website, by employers when hiring. Reportedly private "accreditation cards" will become real pass cards in the world of work, and that's why certificates are not necessary. But the question of the cost of such knowledge accreditation, its quality, the degree of social need for it, legislation and regulations remains open.
It goes without saying, thanks to technology it is possible to create a network of relationships in education, make the learning process more flexible, and constantly enjoy the support of a teacher in remote, online communication and interaction mode. The introduction of new technologies makes it possible to maintain the trend forthe expansion of access to higher education in the humanities. Computer systems are able to provide supportive educational environment and efficiently combine traditional forms of education with additional features of telecommunication consulting.
Obstacles to appropriate vision of sociological education prospects lie in the whole state of sociological knowledge, which keeps aloof from theoretical generalizations. I share the concern about the negative effects of fragmentation and antagonism among sociologists and the lack of attention to what is outside their field of research. The gap between descriptive and theoretically oriented sociological researches and shift to essays, to "sketch-based explanations", blocks the integrity of sociological interpretation. The world of sociological knowledge is an egalitarian world, the idea of equality is the central principle. However, the prospects for the reproduction and development of sociology in a real non-egalitarian world are problematic. Especially if new generations of future sociologists in universities will superficially understand the capabilities of sociological interpretation, focusing on the microcosm of an individual rather than on the results of social interaction. Today there is an urgent need to find effective ways of learning.
In Moscow State University, in order to improve the quality of education and make interdepartmental integration deeper, interdepartmental training courses / IDC are organized which are available and mandatory for everybody. On the one hand, it provides a possibility of expanding the space of sociological education, development of sociological outlook, demonstrating socially conditioned links between different fields of knowledge, politics, culture, community and social processes, provides the development of capacity for additional social and humanitarian knowledge and expertise that is in high demand among the students of science faculties. On the other hand, there is a routine practice of not taking into consideration thelevel of demand by the students, the popularity of innovative specialized training courses.
Unfortunately, the reforms of social and humanitarian education, conducted under the command of yesterday's experts in the field of "scientific communism",
"historical materialism", alas, made possible the attempts of unscientific institutionalization of "orthodox sociology", the use of negative connotations ofdiberal-ism, democracy, liberal and democratic values connotations in socio-humanistic education. Incomplete conversion of the traditional education model can hardly provide an impressive growth of the quality in socio-humanistic education corresponding to the modern era.
Technological and organizational changes have to take place to carry out large-scale innovative transformations, certainly not only in the Russian education system. These changes will be caused by the influence of deepening inter-disciplinary knowledge and international integration of scientific, technological, socio-hu-manistic provision for education in the context of globalization.
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