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PRINCIPLES OF LIFELONG EDUCATION
V. V. Voronina
The prospects for a country's economic development determine the ability of its educational system to meet the needs of the individual and society in high-quality educational services. Fast changing technologies make it necessary for people to continuously correct and replenish their knowledge in order to increase their educational level. This has necessitated replacement of the paradigm "education for life" by a new one, "education throughout life", thus fundamentally changing the role of education in social and personal development. This new idea is embodied in the concept of "lifelong education".
A lifelong education system must be based on principles and mechanisms of integration and self-organization of complex systems. Integration touches upon various components: levels of education (from preschool to postgraduate), types of education (basic and additional), content of education (upbringing and teaching), interests of the main components of the educational system (person, society, state) and fields connected with education (science and production). Furthermore, a lifelong education system must be modern and consider all the positive traditions and trends of development in the educational system to the fullest extent, i.e. be a person-oriented system which realizes a competency building approach and broadly uses innovative and information technologies allowing a combination of universality and uniqueness of training of specialists on the basis of the ideas of interdisciplinarity and narrow specialization.
The idea of modern engineering education at Irkutsk State Transport University is being expressed by an attempt to link education to the planned results of a learner's personality development. Lately, the idea that a learner must get not only an education, but must achieve some competency level in the activities of daily living in human society is suggested with ever increasing frequency. To that end, a complex of educational techniques, approaches and principles was formed. These educational techniques, approaches and principles are the basis of a new approach oriented toward learners' perceptions. Its basic elements are: modularity; approximation of education with a student's practical activities, teaching on the basis of working situation, involvement of the practical experience of students; usage of active teaching methods, such as simulation exercises, group discussions, trainings; development of students' creativity, ability to take decisions in non-standard situations; and developmental approach: teaching not just to know, but also to understand, create, reflect and use knowledge.
Learning principles. Principle 1. New basic knowledge and skills. The target is to guarantee universal continuous access to education for acquiring and updating of the skills necessary for integration into the information society. Social and economic changes require a new set of necessary basic knowledge, competencies and skills, which ensure active involvement in professional, family and social life. Such skills include computer competence, foreign languages, entrepreneurship and social skills. This doesn't mean that traditional skills in reading, writing and mathematics are not very important. Moreover, the stated above skills shouldn't be considered as a complex of disciplines. They usually
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entwine with each other in terms of content and functionality and overlap each other. For example, simultaneously with studying foreign language we can acquire computer skills and expand our cultural, aesthetic and communicative experience. Some of these skills (for example, computer competence) are absolutely new, while others (foreign language) take on a new importance. Social skills, such as self-confidence, responsibility for one's own future, and also ability to take risk, are becoming more important in the modern world. One can also add to this list the ability to learn, adapt to changes and navigate in flow of information. Acquisition of these skills is extremely important, but their continuous upgrading is important as well. Namely, absence and lack of competence are the main reason for unemployment in many highly developed countries. That is why the state must provide opportunity to acquire or update such skills. And here a system of additional education may play a major role.
Principle 2. Innovative teaching and educating techniques. The target is to develop new techniques of teaching for the lifelong education system. As we make progress towards an information society - a society which is based on knowledge -our understanding of what is education and teaching also changes. Educational technologies become more user-friendly. A learner ceases to be a passive recipient of information. These are natural processes which may be accelerated by focused work of professionals in the field of methodology. Thus, for example, computer technologies provide great opportunities for distance and home education, but methodologists still believe that such education must include face-to-face meetings of teachers and students. It can generally be said that the process of teaching and educating, despite all the changes in society, hasn't been changed for at least a half a century. Educational systems must be flexibly adapted to modern conditions. Teachers become consultants, tutors and intermediaries to a greater extent. Their task is to help a learner to form his education on his own and to recognize his/her personal responsibility for this. And consequently, teaching methods must change towards priority of personal motivation, critical thinking and learning skills.
Principle 3. New system of educational attainment evaluation. The target is to fundamentally change approaches to understanding and recognition of educational activities and their results, especially in the field of further professional education. Complete utilization of the human factor becomes the key to success and competitiveness in a society and economics based on knowledge. Accordingly, diplomas, qualifications and certificates are of great importance for both employee and employer. They become increasingly important in the labor market, where educational space in terms of continuing professional education for a student is determined by many educational offers and it is based on a modular concept. A certificate is issued after completion of a module. Thus, each student gets a certificate after selection and completion of a certain module, and the totality of such certificates composes his individual certification card.
Development of programs of further education for students is a promising direction for improvement of the lifelong education system, because it ensures integration of practice-oriented further education into classical and fundamental university education.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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