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LIFELONG EDUCATION
AND SPECIFIC FEATURES
OF ITS DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE
K. D. Gurova
L. I. Pronkina
Lifelong education is not a development stage of the educational system. Rather, it is a necessary integral part of the process of the integration of science, education and production. The most dynamically developing countries are focused on the development of the national educational system. In this context, all forms of training and advanced training of staff that are closely related to knowledgeintensive production become important, which makes the process of lifelong education even more intensive. Development and diversification of educational services in addition to the basic school and higher education is one of the purposes of lifelong education. There are also other important preconditions for development of the lifelong education system: developed staff planning at a company level; state finance; a favorable tax policy and legislative support of the new forms of cooperation of science, education and production.
In Article 53 of the Constitution of Ukraine it is stated that the government guarantees all citizens free education. However, according to the statistical data, the number of students studying on a contractual basis, as compared to the number of students that receive state-financed educational services, increases on an annual basis. According to the information of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine, during the period from 2005 to 2011, the total number of budget-financed places at higher educational establishments decreased from 351,000 down to 182,000. In 2012 approximately 60% of students studied on a contractual basis. For economies in transition, the large-scale shortage of financial resources of the population and acute differentiation of income limits wide-scale access to education.
The government, which is able to create a successfully functioning educational system, should be responsible for preparation of staff and allocating investments for its development. Article 61 of the Law of Ukraine on Education determines the necessary level of budgetary provisions for education in the amount of not less than 10% of gross domestic product (GDP). According to the data contained in the International Report Concerning Education, the share of state expenses for education in Ukraine has been recently maintained at a level close to 6% of GDP and is quite comparable with indices of the developed Western European countries and North American countries. Thus, in the EU countries, which have set the target of becoming a “society of knowledge”, these provisions equal 3% of GDP, while in the USA expenses for education are 6-7% of GDP. Expenses of the Ukrainian state budget for education increased during a period of 5 years by 3 times (from 9.9 billion UAH in 2005 up to 28.8 UAH in 2010). In 2012, total expenses for education were 6.5% of GDP, as compared to almost 7% in 2011. With GDP of 900 billion UAH, such a lack of financing is evaluated at a level of 3.6 billion UAH. The ratio of expenses of the consolidated budget of 2013 for
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education as a percentage of GDP should be 5.5%, which, as compared to 2012, will increases expenses for education by 7 billion UAH. However, more than 90% of state investments in education are allocated for payment of salary, scholarship, and utility bills. Only 0.5% of annual budget provisions are spent for material and technical support of educational institutions.
The cyclic path of the Ukrainian system of education is another problem. Higher educational establishments give their graduates a good package of theoretical knowledge and a minimum package of practical skills, which does not allow a graduate to start specific practical work in one’s professional field at once. In the current situation it is important for the future students not only to have deep knowledge and fundamental theoretical training, but also a creative approach to their use in practical life. Consequently, it is important to change the paradigm of relations between companies and educational institutions. Nowadays, employers fairly submit high requirements to the level of preparation of graduates. They (the employers) should have the right to articulate their wishes, to take an active part in discussion of standards and educational programs.
At the same time, it is really important to make businesses be partially responsible for payment of expenses related to training of staff. In order to encourage the employers to take part in training and employment of specialists, we propose making amendments and addenda to the economic and tax codes, to release the employers for the period of three years from making obligatory social contributions for salary of graduates of the educational establishments, who are working in their professional field, to introduce preferential tax treatment for entities of economic activity that provide the bases for practical work placements of students of higher educational institutions. A system of education which is not related to production cannot prepare specialists suitable for practical work. So, there is an acute need for development of the system of support of graduates, which means not only constant contacts with them and tracing their career development, but also developing special forms of giving additional skills and knowledge to them. This may be organized in the form of additional training at an enterprise or at a higher educational establishment by order of a company, or a transitional stage for inclusion into a job or internship at a future job place, or retraining in a certain (previously chosen) area.
Development of the lifelong education system is based on two interrelated tendencies: penetration of the production area into the area of basic preparation, and vice versa, penetration of education into the production process. The distinction is eliminated between different stages of the educational process. It is especially difficult to define the border between basic education and advanced training. In particular, at a large enterprise students (workers), who have good general education (school of higher) preparation, since the very beginning should be involved in the process of interchange of the short-term periods of professional training and labor activities (with relevant change of job places), gradually passing into the system of advanced training. This means that a company becomes responsible for a considerable part of the educational process integrated with the production area, and the educational system becomes only responsible for general education.
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In today’s system of economic activities, educational establishments should bear more responsibility for the quality of the educational services provided, for observation of the educational system by state management standards. Ukraine has developed higher education standards. The new generation of the regulatory and educational and methodological documents is based on the results of study and forecasting of the structure of social and production activities of specialists taking into account the requirements of the labor market. Implementation of the state standards makes it possible to preserve the unified educational environment, and to achieve the best level of regulation of activities at a higher educational institution, however, it does not solve the problem of the order of priorities of programs of preparation of junior specialists and bachelors. A lack of agreement between these standards does not allow persons with a degree of junior specialist to continue their education according to the approved state program. It is only possible to receive the next level of education according to the so-called “reduced” program, which is developed by a higher educational institution. Regulations on the educational and qualification level only guarantee that the period of preparation of students under the educational and qualification level of a bachelor shall be reduced by one - two years. This helps to make a conclusion about the different quality of preparation of bachelors based on complete general secondary education and based on a level of a junior specialist, and thus, the need for development of additional state educational standards.
Implementation of the main provisions of the Bologna Declaration, based on the lifelong education principle, will facilitate improvement of its quality in Ukraine. That is why principles of the Bologna Declaration, taking into account their complexity and doubts, should be the guiding principles for development of the state educational policy, the strategy of further development of education in the country. Affiliating Ukraine with the Bologna process became an important factor of modernization of higher education. In this context, quality becomes a long-term purpose for educational institutions that wish to make their offers in the field of the educational services a real value for citizens. In its turn, it sets new requirements for the educational services, and the need to reform them based on lifelong education.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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