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THE EXPERIENCE OF LIFELONG EDUCATION AND ENLIGHTENMENT IN THE SYSTEM OF THE “ZNANIE” SOCIETY OF SAINT PETERSBURG AND LENINGRAD OBLAST
S. M. Klimov
When shaping state policy in the sphere of professional training and retraining of personnel and building a system of education and lifelong education, it is necessary to consider the substantial possibilities of the segment of informal education. It provides the state educational system with the necessary flexibility to react immediately to progress in the economic, social, and cultural spheres and facilitates implementation of a variety of educational initiatives.
Russia has deep roots stretching back to the 18th century and rich traditions of enlightenment, which today face many challenges. Unfortunately, due to the insufficient attention given to this sphere, proponents of various unscientific ideas have found refuge here, as well as downright phonies.
The “Znanie” Society should be considered one among those organizations that possess the necessary intellectual and human resources, work experience, developed infrastructure, and, most importantly, the trust of the population, to strengthen the broad system of scientific education in non-formal education. For over 60 years, the “Znanie” Society of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast has been one of the largest educational organizations in our country, able not only to survive in conditions of radical socioeconomic transformation and to generally preserve its infrastructure, but also to find new organizational and methodological forms of work that are suitable for the modern conditions. The cultural and educational institutions the work within the structure of the “Znanie” Society of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast: the House of Science and Technology Promotion, the Humanitarian Center, Planetarium, Central Auditorium, 12 educational centers (including training and retraining of personnel for transport, computer training, aesthetic education of children, psychological education and therapy, correct speech and writing literacy, etc.), a publishing house of popular science and educational literature, the magazine “Znaniya i Obshchestvo” with a readership throughout Russia, and a library. In 1994, the Saint Petersburg Institute of Foreign Economic Relations, Economics and Law was created with a network of branches throughout the Russian regions and Leningrad Oblast.
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These resources have become a reliable basis for a regional, multilevel system of lifelong non-formal education and “lifewide learning”1.
The President of the Russian Federation has repeatedly pointed out that many educational reforms “fail to gain traction” and even provoke the unhealthy reaction of divestiture because of an insufficient level public education. This problem can be solved by combining the scientific and pedagogical potential of educational institutions and scientific organizations with the tools of non-formal education, creating auditoriums and consultation centers, opening people’s universities and municipal educational complexes, etc. Unfortunately, people are not always aware of their educational needs and cannot always articulate them. Therefore, the “Znanie” Society can be most useful during active collaboration with executive and legislative authorities, business associations, professional unions, educational and public health organizations, creative unions, scientific engineering technology societies, and business. Unlike many educational organizations that have arisen in recent years, the “Znanie” Society has always approached the solution of educational problems comprehensively. Systematic preparation of lecturers and training personnel is carried out, methodological literature is published and monitoring the quality of lectures and lessons takes place. The various forms of educational work that fall within the concept of lifelong education and the accompanying concept of lifewide education take on a special role.
The “Znanie” Society of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast attracts not only important scholars and instructors from institutions of higher education to its work, but also a wide circle of specialists of various types and representatives of branches of power for advocacy work in a wide sphere, in particular: in the sphere of health and ecological education; prevention of drug abuse; work with families having problems with childrearing; people of the so-called “third age”; and youth. There has been a positive experience of a systematic approach to non-formal education and education in such areas as building civil society and military history education. Programs for legal education and overcoming legal nihilism
1 Non-formal learning does not typically lead to formalized certificates and takes place in educational institutions, clubs, and circles, and also during individual lessons with a tutor or trainer. (The European Union Memorandum for Lifelong Learning. 2000). The term “lifewide learning” emphasizes not only the continual process of education, but also the variety of its forms - formal, non-formal, and informal. It reminds us that education can be simultaneously pleasant and useful and take place both in an educational institution and in the family, in the company of friends, in the workplace, or in a membership club. (The European Union Memorandum for Lifelong Learning. 2000).
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have received presidential grants, as well as the project "The Art of Memory: Educating the National and Cultural Consciousness of Today’s Youth”, and a school of young script writers. The programs "Youth and Elections”, "Institutions of Higher Education Without Drugs”, and the Olympiad "Sails of Science” are run with the continuing support of the Administration of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast. The arsenal of the "Znanie” Society is sufficient to implement mass objective, scientifically-tested, systematic work with the population.
The problem consists in the lack of requests. Frequently informational support for reforms and projects are carried out by those implement them, who lack sufficient human resources and infrastructure in the field of nonformal education (money is spent on seminars and conferences to no effect), and critics mobilize the resources of party agitators and types of "street protest” and sometimes utilize the resources of social organizations supported from abroad as well.
The most important event of the last twenty years for the "Znanie” Society was creation of nongovernmental institutions of secondary and professional education. Today they are a noticeable phenomenon in the Russian educational system. The reasons for the success of this work can be analyzed on the example of the Saint Petersburg Institute of Foreign Economic Relations, Economics and Law (IVESEP). At the current time, over 18 thousand people study in IVESEP and its 26 branches. Over the course of the past 5 years, the institution of higher education has maintained a high placement in the ratings of the Ministry of Education and Science of the RF and regional rankings for such indicators as the job placement of graduates according to their specialization and salary level in relation to the average in the region. The only founder of the institution of higher education was the International Social Organization "Znanie” Society of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast. The Institute adopted from its parent organization a particular culture based on the ideas of enlightenment, the synthesis of traditional knowledge and new ideas, openness, and democratic government. Multifaceted and sturdy links with the scientific and educational community have ensured the inflow of organizational and methodological ideas, which ultimately allowed the Institute to come into its own.
One of the most important prerequisites for the successful work of the Institute was received from the "Znanie” Society - a system of regional and city organizations connected by a unified technology of carrying out large-scale educational work and non-formal education. The wide distribution of branches would be impossible if not for the existence of a corresponding
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segment of demand on the educational market. Engineers, accountants, and specialist in automobile transportation and the insurance business having received their diplomas in the 1980s and 1990s are excluded from the system of continuous professional retraining and the branch industry of upgrading qualifications, which is a very tangible problem for the economy and education. From a clear understanding of these social realities flows a particular strategy for the development of institutions of higher education, targeted in the context of a demographic crisis on the development of faculties of higher and, especially, continuing education. In this context, important meaning is given to expanding the base and technologies of extramural and part-time professional education. The system of higher education should find an adequate answer to the situation in which the best institutions of higher education, supplying the most modern educational services, both in the range of specialties and specializations and in the quality of instruction, are concentrated in the capitals of science centers, and are generally poorly accessible to inhabitants of "the interior”. The development of a branch network as educational quality requirements steadily rise, helps, according to our belief, to solve the entire tangle of interrelated socioeconomic problems of youth, the reduction of the amount spent on education, attraction of specialists to the place of their economic relevance, corporate training, and strengthening the institution of family. Our experience convinces us that we should not make hasty decisions about “compression of the entire education system”, cutting off of the branch network of Russian universities and the reduction of public and private educational institutions. There is also no call to stubbornly refuse to notice the contribution of non-formal educational structures in education of the public. The political momentum and steps towards support in this area by the President and the Russian Government are extremely important and encourage hope for positive development.
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