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THE TRAINING OF ANDRAGOGISTS IN UZBEKISTAN
R. Lens,
N. Rakhimov
Lifelong adult education and training has become one of key elements of the education system in many developed countries. Adult education is known to be of great importance for employment growth. The contribution of lifelong learning to the socio-economic and cultural development of society is a fact which has obtained general recognition.
In Uzbekistan, great emphasis is placed on the development of vocational education. As the result of a goal-oriented policy in the field of education, a wide network of such educational establishments as vocational schools and academic lyceums, higher education institutions and universities has been created in the republic. Thus, education is available, and the high professional level of educationalists secures the required quality of education. Education policy in general directly corresponds to the EC Memorandum adopted in Lisbon on October 30, 2000, proposing to turn schools and other educational establishments into multi-purpose local learning centres, all linked to the Internet and accessible to people of all ages.
The project implementation practice of the representative office of the German Association of Peoples' Universities (dvv international)1 has shown the possibilities for occupational training and retraining of adults on the basis of vocational schools. In our opinion, this fact makes the development of adult education in the republic considerably easier, brings training closer to home, and may facilitate the development of additional occupational education for adults. The arrangement of short-term vocational courses for the unemployed adult population has contributed to the formation of learning centres for adults in the vocational schools of Uzbekistan.
Our practice has shown that the region has great potential for professionals having the required knowledge of adult teaching techniques. However we can hardly classify them as adequately trained specialists for teaching adults, since they obviously lack the required knowledge of management and marketing, adult teaching and learning trends worldwide, and international documents regulating adult education. In this connection,
1 More information on the Representative office of dvv international is available at: www.dvv-international.uz
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the necessity arises for higher education institutions to create and develop systems of training for highly qualified adult education specialists. It is assumed that people having initial higher education in the sphere of pedagogy, psychology, sociology and other humanities will continue their training in the sphere of adult education at Master's degree level.
The representative office of the German Association of People’s Universities (dvv international), together with the Centre for High Vocational Education under the Ministry of Higher and High Vocational Education of the Republic of Uzbekistan have resolved to begin working jointly on testing this idea on the basis of the Institute of Advanced Training and Retraining of Teaching Staff for High Special Vocational Education. The Institute is a structural division of the Centre for High Special Vocational Education, the core activities of which are focused on the advanced training and retraining of managerial and teaching staff in the system of high special vocational education, and on training of education research staff for the same system.
The target groups within the projects were defined as follows: employees of Institutes, Faculties, Advanced Training Centres; teaching staff of vocational colleges engaged in training and retraining of the unemployed. The project is implemented in close cooperation with professionals from the Ministry of Higher and High Vocational Education, the Institute of Advanced Training, and with other educational establishments and experts. The main results of the project are the elaboration and testing of two training programs: "Socio-Psychological Characteristics of Training the Unemployed Population” and "Training of Skilled Andragogists”.
In the long term, it is scheduled to create a methodological complex for training of skilled andragogists in the Russian and Uzbek languages, to arrange the probation of specialists, and the inclusion of the "andragogist” speciality in the state classification of occupations. We hope that training, retraining and advanced training of andragogy specialists will be commenced in higher education institutions of the country in the foreseeable future.
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