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PECULIARITIES OF NETWORK PROGRAMS DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE
A. L. Malchukova
Lifelong education, i.e. its content structure and organizational composition of educational system, ensures access to lifelong learning. Network programs combining the resources of different organizations and using interdisciplinary approach to content design, flexibility, mobility, and ensuring efficient interaction between labor market and education are the modern trend of lifelong education.
Key words: continuous education, network educational programs, program design and implementation, networking of education, research, business and organizations.
An important aspect of an educational organization's efficiency at present is its being included in the process of realization of the continuous education concept. In this case, continuous education acts as a trend in the modernization of the education system; for the learners, it is a factor of their success in life. One of the trends in the implementation of this concept is the development of network supplementary professional programs. Professional programs are primarily intended for working people. This enhances the inclusion of economically the active population in the processes of skills improvement, and improves the quality of labor as a whole. The network supplementary programs are intended to smooth over the differences between the labor market, business and education, between the state's requirements and training technologies.
New training forms and technologies are tested in the process of a program’s implementation, and individual educational routes are mapped. Network programs form a significant resource of education development, and they afford the following opportunities to the developers and users of this educational service: (a) increasing the dynamics of changes in the structure of educational activity in conformity with changes in demand on the educational services market and the labor market; (b) expanding the range or programs implemented by educational organizations at various levels, and increasing their accessibility; (c) improving the flexibility of the education process structure through realization of individual educational routes; (d) creating an opportunity for using contemporary forms and technologies, integrated education methods; (d) improving the quality of educatees' training, improving their competitiveness on the labor market and other opportunities.
It should be noted that the development of supplementary network programs is one of several models of network interaction between organizations, being the most efficient form of network interaction and meeting the needs of the labor market, the educational services market and various categories of learners. There are several options of network educational programs, which are: (a) a network educational program as a part of a large-scale network project of real sector educational organizations and enterprises integrating personnel, resources, educational processes, scientific and other studies; (b) a network educational program as a result of creating a network infrastructures integrating the program
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developers; (c) a network educational program as an individual network project, carrying out integration at the program users' level.
Let us turn to the actual experience of developing and implementation of a network educational program that demonstrates the integration both at the level of its developers and at the level of the educational service users. The process of professional standards introduction into practice presumes the process of recruiting companies and institutions’ personnel oriented to those documents where special priority is accorded to the level and trend of specialists' education. E.g., in social spheres, a specialist in the area of social work is supposed to have a specialized education (professional retraining) in the "Social Activity" field, and to perform his or her labor functions in interaction with various categories of people, including the homeless. The category of such people is not homogeneous. It comprises people who were released from places of detention, carriers of various diseases, and others. A social activity specialist must render necessary state services to such categories of people, but often it happens that the employee in question cannot interact with them efficiently and perform his or her labor functions. In connection with this, a need arose to train social workers to interact with various categories of homeless people. The network partners in creating the program for social workers were the “Nochlezhka” Charity Fund, and the “Dom Nadezhdy Na Gore” charity center. The network program was ordered by comprehensive centers of social services of the population of Saint Petersburg. These are non-commercial organizations and funds. Therefore, the interests of users (social workers' demand for training) and the developers who were interested in the distribution of accumulated positive experience of work with homeless persons were integrated. For example, the Nochlezhka Charity Fund realizes the program "Specialized Resource Methodological Center for Socially Oriented Noncommercial Organizations in the Area of Protecting Rights and Complex Aid to Socially Excluded Population Groups, Namely Homeless and Unregistered People.
The development and implementation of the network program were carried out in several stages:
(1) determining the concept of the program, its purposes, tasks, and presumed results (as a result of training, the program attendees must gain knowledge of the legal framework of working with homeless people, of psychological particularities of that category or person, the ability to communicate efficiently and to render requested services).
(2) Developing the program content, and determining the conditions for using contemporary training technologies. The program content was built on a modular principle (the theoretical part described the experience of rendering aid to homeless people abroad, and the practical part included such aspects as the development of abilities to consult, rehabilitate and adapt homeless people, to render social and psychological aid to those released from places of detention, mastering technologies of professional burnout prevention, etc.); the training part was devoted to training sessions on working with the homeless).
(3) The following stage of working with the network program was its advertising support and admission of trainees. In this case, the internet facilities and direct e-mail to the addresses of potential trainees were the most efficient methods of distributing information.
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(4) This stage of network program distribution combined various forms of studies and training technologies, including interactive ones, as well as trainees' independent studies. Both teachers of theory and professional lawyers, trainers and volunteers worked with trainees. Thus, personnel resources of various organizations were not only used at the development stage, but also at the program implementation stage.
(5) The network program quality monitoring the presupposed measuring of the quality of the rendered educational service (an assessment method was used, namely: the trainees assessed the program by certain criteria and scales from the perspectives of the actual comprehensiveness of the theoretical content of the program).
We should note that the network program quality was rated as “high” by the trainees: More than 60% of trainees considered the theoretical knowledge they obtained as necessary in their professional activities; 67% said that they would be able to apply the obtained expertise and skills in practice, and to carry out their professional tasks more efficiently; about 50% rated the professional skills of teachers and trainers highly and gave other positive comments. As a whole, it can be stated that the network program that pooled the resources of several organization is highly efficient, and that it had a profound and positive effect on the trainees.
At present, network educational programs are a flexible, rapid and efficient method of interaction between the labor market, the employer and the educational organizations, as well as the method of fast response to social, scientific and technical changes. It is within the framework of network supplementary programs that it is possible to use interdisciplinary links, new training technologies and various systems of tests. A network supplementary program is a multilevel, invariant open mobile system, tuned to the changes in the environmental conditions of interaction between various organizations and institutions, to using communicative strategies and contemporary training technologies, and is adaptable to any training process participant.
Therefore, network educational programs are doubtlessly the core trend of the implementation of the concept of continuous education as "education throughout life".
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Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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