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SELF-EDUCATION AS CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL SOCIALIZATION OF MAN
M. B. Glotov
N. A. Lobanov
The tasks faced by contemporary Russia in the field of innovative development set the system of education three priority and interrelated challenges: (1) to bring the level of competence of people’s professional training more in line with the level of competence of the real sector of economy and social sphere; (2) to promote updating scientific knowledge as a necessary condition of innovative development of material and spiritual production branches; (3) to ensure the ongoing reproduction of highly qualified personnel for all spheres of public life.
Practical implementation of these tasks is directly linked to both basic and extended professional education. The existing forms and methods of extended education are known and many of them have proved their productive efficiency. However, in the institutional practice of extended education, professional selfeducation found itself at the periphery of scientific interests and practice of application. We suppose that within the next 10-15 years, professional selfeducation will account for at least 30% of the number of students in the system of extended professional education in terms of the number of users. There are both sufficient grounds and an urgent need for that.
Firstly, the market for services of primary professional education is generally established by now. Its changes in the coming years will be mostly related to the emergence of new specialties and the integration of several specialties in the structure of secondary and higher professional education. The market for services of primary professional education will not grow quantitatively. Moreover, it has already been contracting noticeably for several years, while the market for additional education has been objectively expanding. It is the market for educational services that now determines and will further determine the rate of advance along the path of innovative development.
Secondly, the market for additional educational services in its present form fails to meet the tasks of modernization of the country in most branches of economic and social spheres. No radical changes should be expected in this educational sector in the coming years, either. This is related both to economic possibilities and the impossibility of preparing a corps of competent specialists within a short time that would be able to work in the innovative training environment of extended professional education.
The barriers blocking the continuous reproduction of the necessary and sufficient number of competent specialists could be considerably cleared through the development of the state-corporate system of professional self-education. However, to do this we should abandon the surviving stereotypes of the epoch of pre-innovative development. One of them is that despite the general awareness of the significance of the institution of professional self-education as an economic and social resource, the attitude of the state and society to professional education has remained the same: this is a form of the individual’s satisfaction of one’s own
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interests. It is characteristic that until the mid-XX century, the word “self-education” was associated with the acquisition of knowledge, abilities and skills gained by people without the help of professional specialists of educational institutions during classes. For example, in the Dictionary of the Russian Language by S.I. Ozhegov, the word “self-education” is explained as “gaining knowledge through independent studies outside school, without a teacher’s help”. The subsequent dictionaries have not advanced much in the understanding of the social significance of selfeducation. However, even when self-education was considered in a broader context, the understanding of its contents stayed within the boundaries of the acquisition of general educational knowledge, leaving the processes of independent acquisition of scientific knowledge and mastering professional skills on the periphery.
At present, professional self-education continues to perform the social function of satisfying individual interests, but the results of these interests often acquire social significance and give rise to new social and technical initiatives, often going beyond the intellectual scope of personal interests. It increasingly acquires the features of professional education. It is the manifestation of the personal professional interest in continuous self-education that we possibly owe to most past and many present discoveries. We still have to comprehend the place and role of this form of education in the XXI century. However, it is obvious that self-education is moving from the field of “amateur activities” to the field of professional labour.
It is in the epoch of escalation of institutional forms of professional training and development of various forms of additional education that the need for professional self-education for a considerable part of the working population becomes a social and economic imperative, a condition of maintaining their social status and professional image, as well as a condition of their competitiveness on the labour market. We must not miss this trend, though it is not a strongly pronounced one.
Self-education is one of the oldest social institutions in society, accompanying man throughout his conscious experience. In the broad meaning of this term, self-education should be understood as the process of individual socialization of a person through the acquisition of knowledge and skills.
Most contemporary sociologists understand socialization as the process of transformation of a child into an adult member of society, the process of entering the social environment, adjustment to it, assimilation of attitudes and models of behaviour, norms and values of the existing culture, inherent in the social communities in which the person functions, the acquisition of social experience, substitution of social roles and social status in social life. The purpose of the socialization process is that throughout life, a person assimilates knowledge and values, rules and norms, skills, mechanisms, and ways of social actions external to the person, developed and assimilated by the culture of a particular society. The individual conscious, task-oriented and organized socialization of a person can be best designated by the notion of “continuous self-education”. A person’s organized socialization implies the creation of conditions by society, for the fulfillment of a person’s need for gaining knowledge and assimilation of skills.
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In the context of the issues being discussed, the notion of “professional selfeducation” gains a special meaning for us. We understand professional selfeducation as an individual task-oriented process of gaining knowledge and skills as professional competences through independent studies, according to special educational programs approved by the employer, or according to academic programs of the institution of extended professional education agreed upon with the employer. In most cases extended professional education however, presupposes temporary distraction of the employee from the primary work, which has its undesirable consequences for the employer as the employee temporarily withdraws from the production and working process. Besides, the employer has to pay the training costs, subsistence allowances and expenses. Advanced training at an educational institution is not always profitable for the employee, either. The employee’s income during the training period may decrease, and the employee may be separated from his family and usual life if the training takes place in another city or country. These undesirable circumstances may be partially overcome by professional self-education. This requires: (a) giving the status of a state form of education to professional self-education; (b) the development of academic programs of professional self-education, granting them the title of educational programs of extended education; (c) the creation of a system of control and evaluation of the knowledge of the person studying individually; (d) making the employee materially interested in professional self-education; (e) using the accumulated experience of work of the extramural form of education and advanced training.
Can professional education be currently used as a rightful and large-scale form of extramural education and advanced training? Definitely, it can. However, this requires the identification of the list of professions with existing academic programs, the creation of academic programs for the professions being in special demand with the production and social sphere, as well as the creation of an educational infrastructure relating to the profession or specialty. The internet has huge informational possibilities for independent training, and these possibilities increase manifold for an English-speaking user. Today, many higher educational institutions and large corporations have already organized experimental interactive training and advanced training, using it as a form of professional self-education.
In 2001, Massachusetts Technological Institute created the Open Course Ware (OCW) hybrid library for wide use. Its website displays lectures by the teachers, and by 2009 80% of educational programs had become the property of the professional community, which enabled this educational portal to become one of the most frequently visited portals in the world. In 2012, one more educational resource opened: edX.org, that united the hybrid libraries of Massachusetts Technological Institute, Harvard and Cambridge Universities, and other higher educational institutions. It offers academic distance education. Today there are many thousands of users of these courses. In Saint Petersburg, the Lectoreum media project has been created on the basis of the Leningrad Electrotechnical University, Saint Petersburg State University, Moscow State University, and other higher educational institutions. Its portal offers more than two thousand lectures by Russian and foreign teachers.
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We suppose that an employee who has agreed to participate in the mandatory program of extended education in the extramural form should get a monthly salary supplement throughout the training period. It may be not less than 20% of the base rate or to the contracted salary amount (the supplement amount is certainly the employer’s prerogative), or a lump sum supplement after the completion of a certain educational program and successful examination or presentation of a project. Professional self-education is a considerable expenditure of the employee’s time and efforts beyond his working day, and these expenditures must be adequately remunerated materially. Continuous professional selfeducation is an inexhaustible educational resource of the state and society. By creating a system of continuous professional self-education within the framework of extended education, one can increase its significance manifold and meet the challenges of the XXI century, the economic and social development of Russia.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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