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ADULT EDUCATION IN THE CONTINUOUS EDUCATION SYSTEM
A. A. Verbitsky
The article reveals problems of adults' education as a part of lifelong learning. The article formulates the mission of continuing education, its values, purposes, contents, and principles and terms of organizing the educational process.
Key words: lifelong learning, adult education, principles, contents, adults' education process.
The Problems of Adult Education Development at the Present Stage of Industrial and Social Development. The relations that have taken shape between science, education and industry in contemporary society are rather contradictory. On the one hand, in view of education's conservatism, it lags behind the achievements of the sciences, especially those that determine the development of new information and production technologies. This circumstance brings about functional illiteracy and technological unemployment, creating the need for continuous education in adults. On the other hand, the high rate of change of manufacturing processes and the dynamism of socio-economic ones brings about a lag of the sciences themselves. Functional illiteracy arises. This touches upon many categories of workers, also making the problem of adult education more urgent. We can also add the need for professional refinement of a multitude of bachelor degree holders, skills improvement or retraining of refugees, unemployed people, and workers that were dismissed on grounds of redundancy. These facts make it necessary to develop an adult education or supplementary professional education system. The problem is that such an education is not a system united by some conceptual basis, but rather is a broken set of institutes and departments of advanced training that survived in some places and centers and structures that arise at higher educational institutions and enterprises. Many of them preserve the traditions of transferring ready-made knowledge, and their material and technical and information base is weak. There is no system of training teachers especially for those structures. The list of problems is far from finished.
In reference to the above, it is necessary to develop a concept of continuous adult education articulating its mission, key ideas and principles, its main functions, and relations to other stages of education, science, industry, and social practices of society as a whole that must be used as a basis for developing the strategy, tactics and a specific program of development of the adult education system.
The Essence and Principles of Adult Education Human personality and ability to be a genuine subject of cognitive, social, professional and innovative activities is a lasting value against the background of rapid changes of manufacturing technologies and socio-economic relations in society. Therefore, a human being must be viewed not as manpower, as a means of social development, but as its goal. Subsequently, adult education acts as a sphere of spiritual production whose product is increasing a specialist's active abilities, his or her potential for competent and responsible performance of professional and social
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functions, producing new ideas, technologies and solutions, improving his or her cultural and moral standards, laying down the foundation for self-development.
The conceptualization of the essence of continuous adult education determining the understanding of its specific nature in the general system of continuous education and its social role is based on analysis and consideration of four principal factors: (1) the priority of spiritual, intellectual and professional potential of specialists and managers working in industry, science and culture in the economic and social rebirth and prosperity of society; (2) the need for rapid renovation of personnel caused by increasing change in science, production technologies and social processes underway in the world and in Russian society; (3) social values, goals, cognitive and professional needs and motives, peculiar features of life, cognitive, social and professional experience that have become ingrained in adults; (4) the processes of integration of education, science and industry, manifesting themselves, in particular, in the similarity between organizational forms of students' learning activities and the forms of specialists' professional activities and the adult education system, performing a part of the functions of the country's research sector.
Consequently, the principles of adult education are an organic part of the total system of continuous education.
The principle of priority development of spiritual, intellectual, socio-cultural, professional and moral potential of an adult's personality, of his or her abilities not only to serve the available production and social technologies in an efficient manner, but to carry out innovative processes, the processes of social creativity in a loose sense.
The principle of consistency is positioned in two aspects: (a) as consistency of content, forms, methods, facilities and conditions of education at consecutive stages of continuous education; (b) as a principle of consistency of the levels of development and self-development of a person passing those stages in compliance with his or her cognitive, social and professional needs.
The principle of continuity of education. This principle is conditioned by two factors: the concept of succession of human development levels and the application to the philosophical categories of "discontinuity and continuity" that characterize both the structure of an object and the process of its development. Educational structures are discontinuous; however, they must not restrict continuous development of the individual, provided gaps are "filled in" by selfeducation. This presumes preservation and development of a person’s cognitive attitude to the world (cognitive motivation) and his/her ability to learn. Therefore, it is necessary to switch over to developmental type education at all stages of continuous education that precede adult education.
The principle of diversification of educational programs, and the flexibility of types and forms of adult education that implement those programs.
The principle of an adult getting education of any kind having any content at any place and time. It is impossible to get the country out of crisis in the near future if we focus on the generation of workers that must get through the basic structures of continuous education. While implementing that principle in the modern context, it is necessary to solve the problems of selecting socially active specialists and
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managers, and creating optimum opportunities for their rapid spiritual, personal, professional, official and social advancement.
The previous principle is supplemented by the principle of focusing adult education on meeting the needs for education that they already have. Such needs arise where innovative processes of political, economic, technological and social creativity are underway, where workers become actual subjects of decision making in all spheres of their lives. However, this does not make the task of shaping cognitive needs in everyone, from schoolchildren to adults, less critical.
The principle of ensuring an adult's practical attitude to knowledge: he or she regards the new knowledge he/she acquires not as the purpose of learning activity, but as a means of solving the topical problems and tasks he/she faces at work and in society, mastering knowledge in its context.
The principle of integration of science, education and industry is implemented in two respects: (1) the content and process of education is projected and implemented in terms of sciences, and in the context of social and professional practice of industry and science [1]; (2) the adult education system assumes some functions of science in respect to production of new knowledge, since science lags behind the rapidly changing socio-cultural and professional practice of society.
The principle of the leading role of the joint, collective form of adult education organization, creating opportunities for moral and technological mutual crossfertilization, cross-education, manifestation and shaping of thee creative individuality of every adult student.
The principles listed above reflect the specific features of adult education as an integral part of the continuous education system. At the same time, three more systems of principles are implemented in it: (a) the principles of the general concept of continuous education adopted at the state level back in March 1989, which remain relevant to this day; humanism and democratism, flexibility, openness to new and progressive things, preemptive nature of the education content in respect of the needs of industry and social practice, customization of education received by everyone, including specialists having tertiary and secondary professional education, and managers of all levels [3] (b) the principles of andragogics as a branch of pedagogical science dealing with adult education, in particular harmonizing the education content with the education process participants; (c) psychological and pedagogical principles of context education, in particular, the principle of problem-based content of education and the process of revealing it in dialogical communication of the educational process subjects: trainees and trainers, the principle of didactically substantiated utilization of traditional and innovative pedagogical technologies, the principle of unity of education and fostering [1].
The implementation of the above-described system of adult education principles as an integral part of the general system of continuous education permits us to integrate the total spiritual, life, social, cognitive and professional experience of all the "trainees", to make allowance for everyone's contribution to the results of education. Under such conditions, a "trainee" becomes a real ''thinker", a genuine subject of cognitive and practical innovative activities. When he or she returns to her workplace, he or she may introduce individually and jointly acquired knowledge into practice, thus forestalling scientific research.
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As each adult trainee shares his/her knowledge and experience with others, he/she assumes some of the teacher's functions. This is a serious motivating factor of his/her inclusion in the educational process. Meanwhile, the teacher does not act as a transmitter of teaching information, but as a pedagogical technologist who organizes creative processes of procreation of new knowledge, purposes, senses and values by adult students themselves.
The Purposes and Content of Adult Education. The activity of the specialist (adult) education system is focused on attaining the following principal objectives: (1) increasing the spiritual and intellectual potential of Russian society jointly with other parts of the continuous education system; (2) permanent incitement, detection and satisfaction of adults' need for education; (3) improving personnel to meet world standards, promoting the processes of socio-economic development of the country; (4) ensuring social protection and social rehabilitation of adults, eliminating all forms of functional illiteracy in connection with structural changes in the economy and social sphere; (5) providing adults the opportunity to get education "for personal development", not connected directly with their professional functions, but enriching their human creative potential.
The objectives listed above presume the respective content of educational programs. Whereupon it is necessary to understand the difference between training content and education content. Training content, i.e., an array of theoretical information and algorithms of shaping expertise, skills and competences, makes up the content of the education program. Along with that, education content characterizes the level of moral development of an adult's personality. The augmentation of this level not only depends on what is taught but also on the teacher's personality, the pedagogic technologies and training conditions used, and the personal potential of a group of students.
Adequate legal, financial, material, administrative, staffing, information, psychological and pedagogical, as well as methodological support is what is needed for normal functioning and development of the continuous adult education system.
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народному образованию. Серия: Высшее и среднее специальное образование. - № 8.
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Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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