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IMPROVING TEACHER TRAINING IN THE CONTEXT OF LIFELONG EDUCATION
Z. O. Zhilbayev
Under conditions of globalisation, it is important to develop common approaches to resolving problems of social, economic and cultural development where the primary factor is education. The most reliable education standards today are set by the UN, UNESCO, the EU, etc. According to these standards, one of the key principles of sustainable development is lifelong education. Lifelong education is understood to be any educational activity beginning at the preschool age and continuing up to the postpension age. Lifelong education can take a range of forms, viz. formal, unformal and informal.
Kazakhstan has all the necessary preconditions to implement this concept. This is a question of the National Qualification, which is similar to the European one in its structure. Its descriptors are a complex symbiosis of academic and professional qualifications. They are expressed in terms of training results, i.e. the qualification levels are prescribed in three general indicators: knowledge, abilities and skills, as well as personal and professional competences [1]. At first sight, the National Qualification, a mechanism integrating the labour market and the education market, has nothing to do with the results of preschool and school training. However, the accumulative and consecutive descriptions of the qualification levels provide consistency and integration of the training results at all educational levels. Therefore the syllabus should be designed on the basis of the expected training results; and the training results, in their turn, should be planned according to the qualification descriptors. The basic strategy of such planning is compliance of curricula to professional standards. In this connection, it’s important to develop professional standards aimed at removing the gap between the growing requirements on educational results on the part of employers, and the real professional level of college and university graduates.
Teacher training is no exception. The National Academy of Education named after Y. Altynsarin took an active part in developing professional standards in the sphere of education and science, modelling the teacher of today. The latter should be ready to bring up a personality meeting the challenges of the fastchanging world by being enthusiastic, critical and creative in thinking, able of nonstandard solutions and ready for lifelong learning. The necessity of forming such skills was underscored by Nursultan Abishevich Nazarbayev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, , in his Message to the People of Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan Way - 2050: Single Goal, Single Interests, Single Future, where he said, “Our way to the future is connected with creating new opportunities to disclose Kazakhstan's potential. ... In secondary education, it is necessary to improve comprehensive schools to the level of teaching in Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools. School graduates should speak Kazakh, Russian and English. School education should result in skills of critical thinking, independent search and deep information analysis” [2].
We can also see these skills among the competences recommended by the Council of Europe [3]: an ability to communicate both in one’s mother tongue and
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foreign languages; elementary knowledge of mathematics, science and technology; elementary entrepreneurship skills; social and civil competences; lifelong learning skills; ICT competences; an ability to form values on the basis of world and national culture. Education in general should be aimed at forming these values. Thereupon the vocational training of teachers should be not pointed, but systemic. In other words, it is inexpedient to train would-be teachers for a particular situation in school education that the fast-changing world continuously transforms. Therefore a teacher of today should be ready for productive innovative activity.
Teachers’ innovative activity is a creative process of designing and implementing pedagogical innovations aimed at improving the quality of education. This process assumes an ability to generate knowledge useful in life, continuous self-development and striving for implementation of the ideas generated. It is necessary today to train teachers to have such competences and to be able to pursue productive and effective innovative pedagogical activity in standard or nonstandard situations.
These ideas were assumed as the principles of professional standards developed in Kazakhstan in the sphere of education and science. Hence, teachertraining universities and colleges should learn to develop their curricula in compliance with professional standards. At the session of the Government, the Minister of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Aslan Bakenovich Sarinzhipov, underscored that the contemporary paradigm of school education will be based on the idea of transition from knowers to life-adapted people. In particular, education quality is now evaluated in terms of its social benefits. That means that the search of answers to the problems arising should consider such aspects as 1. Consolidation of efforts of all social substructures of the society. Here we mean real and effective interaction of the government, parents, teachers, employers and various public organisations concerned with improving the quality of education to the learners’ benefit. 2. Integration of domestic teaching experience with the best practice of foreign countries. At the same time, striving for compliance with international standards should not overshadow the national contents of education. 3. Formation of a polylinguistic and polycultural educational environment. The efficiency of such an environment can be provided for by continuity of learning languages within the kindergarten - school - college - university structure on the basis of the level model of teaching languages. 4. Elimination of an obvious gap between the educational level of urban and rural schoolchildren, including those studying at underfilled schools. The underfilled schools of today are known to have a lot of problems to be resolved. One of them is an insufficient number of teachers of subjects. This problem can be solved by training and improving the skills of specialists able to provide integrated teaching of related subjects within one or more levels. 5. Creation of an adaptive educational environment for children with limited health possibilities. Such an environment is necessary for them to get an education of the same level with their peers. It is necessary to bring up tolerance in children and give regular explanations to parents. 6. Decrease in the figures of deviant behaviour among children and youth. Strengthening the role and responsibility of family in educating the upcoming generation.
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Due account for these social factors will contribute to improving the quality of education in Kazakhstan, including teacher training, and allow not only to increase social responsibility of the organisations of all levels, but also to put the learner's personality in the focus of development and modernisation of the entire education system. We are sure that social aspects underlie the guidelines of developing education in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Among them, a specific place is held by equal access to high-quality education. At the same time, it is necessary to follow the principle of continuity of the syllabi at all levels: from preschool education and training to professional training of personnel with higher and postgraduate education, as well as the principle of integration of both the contents of subjects and educational technologies.
One of Harvard University slogans, which the Head of our state repeatedly quotes, runs “lifelong learning is no longer an alternative but a vital need.” Today the primary goals of improving teacher training are connected not only to the need to raise the quality of educational services, but also to the necessity of providing consistency of education reflecting systemic knowledge, abilities, skills, and competences at all levels of lifelong learning.
References
1. Совместный приказ Министерства труда и социальной защиты населения и Министерства образования и науки от 28.09.2012, № 444.
2. Послание Президента Республики Казахстан - Лидера нации Н. А. Назарбаева народу Казахстана «Казахстанский путь - 2050: единая цель, единые интересы, единое будущее».
3. Рекомендации Парламента и Совета Европы от 18 декабря 2006 г. о ключевых компетенциях обучения в течение жизни (2006/962/EC). Опубликовано: L 394/18 EN Official Journal of the European Union 30.12.2006. Электронный ресурс: eur+lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2006/l_394/l_39420061230en00100018.pdf.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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