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PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION
OF CONVICTS IN PENAL COLONIES
OF THE TIMBER INDUSTRY
IN THE CONTEXT OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
N. A. Molchanov
Chapter 2, Article 43 of the Constitution of the RF states: “Everybody has the right to education”. The degree of exercise of this right is expressed in the possibility of satisfying the person’s spiritual and social-cultural need for getting education. But not all citizens of the Russian Federation have the possibility of exercising this right for a number of objective reasons; in particular, there is a category of citizens having a special legal status that includes those sentenced to imprisonment. It should be noted that while serving their sentence the convicts are not deprived of the status of a citizen of the Russian Federation and, hence, of the right to education. As of January 1, 2014 the number of convicts in institutions of the Penal Enforcement System of the RF was 667,200 people, including 559,900 people serving their sentence in 730 penal colonies. The number of convicts in 127 penal settlements is 40,100 people. The real accessibility of educational services in the sphere of secondary professional education (SPE) and higher professional education (HPE) has a direct impact on the state of protection of their public and private benefits as it is education that can contribute to successful correction of the convicts and reduction of repetition of offences1.
Until quite recently, the notions of “extramural training” and “distance learning” were practically not distinguished in literature. It seems to us that there has outlined a common understanding of these basic notions. First and foremost, we proceed from the fact that distance learning is a new form of learning that exists alongside with other forms of learning: full-time, extramural, external studies in the system of lifelong education. The major factors determining the distance form of learning are: (a) the distance separating the teacher and the learners, at least for the greater part of the training process; (b) the use of training resources capable of uniting the efforts of the teacher and the learners and to ensure assimilation of the content of the course; (c) interactivity between the teacher and the learners, between the administration of the course and the learners; (d) priority of selfcontrol over control on the part of the teacher.
Like any other educational system, the organization of distance learning involves interaction between the teacher and the learners, among the learners within the frames of the accepted training concept. But like all the learners’ cognitive activity, this interaction takes place by specific means of Internet technologies or other interactive technologies. In implementation of educational programs using electronic training media, and distance educational technologies, the place of the educational activities is the organization providing the educational
1 Молчанов Н.А., Вербицкая Н.О. Современные экономико-правовые аспекты развития профессионального образования осужденных в лесной отрасли Уральского региона // Фундаментальные исследования 2013. №11 часть 7.[Электронный ресурс] URL:
www.rae.ru/fs/?section=content&op=show_article&article_id=10002634 (дата обращения: 18.02.2014).
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activities (or its branch) irrespective of the location of the learners. It should be noted that the regulatory documentation for this category of learning convicts is insufficiently developed, and there are no steady notions. There is a need for concretization of the pedagogical staff of distance learning as applied to convicts in penal colonies fixing the principal differences in the organization of the training process in a penal institution and a usual higher educational institution. It is necessary to consider the principal notions of educational programs of higher professional education taking account the organizational, pedagogical and psychological specific features of the student body and special conditions of the activities of a higher educational institution in the penal system.
The distance technology of training of convicts is the process of training convicts using computer and telecommunication technologies under conditions of isolation of the learner from society within the frames of penitentiary treatment (depending on the kind of colonies: particular, tight, general, colony-settlement), which is regulated by the special legislation of the RF. The process of translation of the training information to the penal institution for the convict learner is agreed upon with the administration of the institution. Distance learning of convicts is a form of getting an education by convicts based on computer and telecommunication technologies in the conditions of regulatory restricted access to Internet networks, and translation of safe and secured information in interaction between the higher educational institution and the convict learner. The information technology of convicts training is a pedagogical technology using software and hardware in training of convicts, including the components that monitor, control and restrict the learner’s activity.
In this report we focused on revealing the conceptual framework of distance technologies of professional training on convicts, and consider it most expedient as the content of these notions embedded in the content of organization of the technology of their training. For the timber industry (there are 14 forest penal institutions in the Sverdlovsk Region) such technologies will ensure additional development of human resources from among the convicts released from places of confinement.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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