Educational sciences/4. Strategic areas of the educational system reformation.

Professor of sociological studies, Savinov Leonid Ivanovich

Mordovia State University, Russia, Mordovia Republic, Saransk

A student, Savinova Anna Leonidovna

Mordovia State University, Russia, Mordovia Republic, Saransk

A contradictory way of the revival and development of the educational system in Russia.

Contemporary education in Russia is so contradictory that it is impossible to see it as the united institutional principle for the revival and further development. That is why we will pay attention to the analysis of the independent components that can play an important role in the process of the educational system revival.

The peculiarity of the social educational system formation in Russia is that at the moment of its verification it turned out to be well-established, with the rich potential, deep historical roots, traditions of cooperation, national understanding, professional mutual aid.

During its long evolutional period education not only faced different obstacles, inequality and contradictions, but itself built socially significant barriers, inequalities and contradictions that have both theoretical and applied contents.

Today, in the 20-th century, the regularities, that have intersystem foundations, prove themselves more clearly. It should be said that education cannot stay neutral to the religion, politics and ideology, to the prevailing in the society social classes and strata. The influence of the deterministic factor of the marked social spheres on the education had an impact not only on the content of the knowledge, the subjects studied and upbringing motives, but also it had a great impact on the processes of the education system reformation and on the access of the different population strata to education.

The understanding of the changes that are taking place in the social practice of education at the turn of the 20-21-st centuries will be more objective on condition of joining three groups of social phenomena. The first group includes the most large-scaled social phenomena that stimulate changes in the education social institute: globalism, integration and differentiation of education, new information technologies and higher level of education competence. The second group presents the scope of facts, social subjects and relations, which, on the one hand, reflect deterministic power of the first group influence, and from the other hand, interdependency between each other and this is stated in the real changes in educational system. This group includes: material welfare of the educational institutions and parents of the children, the parents’ attitude towards these institutions, the attitude to the students’ progress, real fact of inequality in education, the role of education in the changing vital activity and so on. Last group of the social phenomena includes the results already marked in educational social practice.

Social institutions are characterized by stability and lag effect. They can be also mentioned in education. However, these institutional qualities became more variable under the growing pressing that was organized by science, advanced technologies, changing or reconstruction of ideology, the processes of reformation the whole system of education. As a result of these socially significant powers collision the system of education, from one side, trying not to lose its institutional fastening description (lag effect, gradualness, sequence, stability) is becoming more dynamic and variable, and from the other hand, education widens with new trends. The system of education itself, its structure and its elements and interconnections are receiving the tendencies of differentiation and complication. New divisions, contradictions and relations appeared in education. These phenomena is a characteristic of state and private education, centralized and decentralized, comprehensive and technical. The contradictions and inequalities among state schools (rural and urban, special schools and comprehensive ones) became more evident. Social researches revealed the row of debatable positions, including opinions that were supposed to be generally accepted. For example, P.Sorokin does not agree with the opinion that general education dissolves mental and social differences and promotes democracy development as it brings up competent citizens and it is not easy for ideologists to manipulate using hollow promises and slogans. Sorokin writes that school, even the most democratic, is open to everyone if it does its task in a right way, being the mechanism of “aristrocratisation” and stratification in society (5.p. 10).

If talking about the raised society expectations to the higher level of educational competence it should be admitted there that not all people follow the straight line of progress. We will pay attention just to one factor (perhaps the main one) that goes in direct proportion to the widening of the education system for training highly qualified specialists. This factor is the industrial revolution. Today countries competing with each other for the world market know well that industrial superiority is directly connected with higher quality education.

Neil Smelser comparing and analyzing the data got by other sociologists presents some points about the influence of qualified factors: the quality of education has a light impact on further achievements or has no impact at all; differences in further life achievements did not depend on the school level and the quality of education; familiar surroundings or classes peculiarities had more important influence on further achievements; it is unreal to expect that education will guarantee social equality(4. P. 455-456).

Modern schools rather approve than disprove the rule that rich people have more opportunities in the sphere of education than poor people. It is necessary to pay for the qualitative high education. The results of the undertaken researches let us judge that students of private schools achieve more remarkable successes in comparison with students from state schools. In private school you can cultivate an interest to studying, the contacts between teachers and students are closer, demands for the discipline and knowledge are higher. Since today in most countries qualitative education needs money, this leads to parents’ intensification to the system of education. Parents are always interested in their children’s good studying and upbringing, however, one cannot help admitting that the level of their interest has increased a lot today as they should pay for the education, and demands to the quality of education and to the university and school grew tremendously. Parents started to decide themselves where their child will study.

Another aspect of the parents’ participation in education is connected with further job placement. In general parents have there the following tendencies: more qualitative education and diploma (certificate) of the prestigious university (school) gives more opportunities for the job in a prestigious profession and on a more highly-paid position. The need of qualitative education comes from the development of the society. The system of education and its elements react to this differently. There are many reasons for such a reaction: universities, schools have different material security, the teachers that work there are not always the same, students and pupils have great differences in their intellectual abilities, teachers work at one position and have equal teaching load, but work in different universities and have different wages, for many children a real opportunity to study in a prestigious school and for school leavers to enter a prestigious university at a prestigious speciality is rather limited, freethinking at the university and its democratic style are desired but are seldom realized and achieved.

Pedagogues and sociologists started to study the school’s order, respect, obedience, conformism and friendship to the discipline breaking, selfishness and the spreading of school violence. The growth of school’s bureaucracy (the head teacher, teacher is always right) promoted this process. The teacher’s attitude to the pupil has changed: the teachers themselves (and their surroundings) were more educated and could better understand those children and parents that were in their surroundings and could not understand properly those children whose parents were ill-bred or illiterate and also children from poor families. Moreover, the emergence of role conflicts was promoted by fixing the teacher for the concrete school subject (the teacher of Mathematics, Chemistry, etc. – they are different personalities); the teacher who knew a whole child stayed in the past as the school consisting of one class with one teacher disappeared from the system of education.

Real educational social practice is increasing today by new interconnections with the quickly changing spheres of vital activities in society. Modern students still studying at the university know quite well their sad opportunities of job placement. There are some variants: some students work and study at the same time and thus solve the problem of job placement; others try to study as long as possible so as to avoid unemployment, they get the second education, enter the magistrates, postgraduate course. The third ones are retrained and get specialities that are now in demand. The fourth ones search for success in part-time work. Labour-market with its unemployment not only is senseless in the process, wastes of education, but also young specialists have doubts in their personal-professional demand, they think if they are in need in the society. Thus, young specialists’ increase of number of people happened to be in the risk of subculture. They are not needed professionally and this fact results in the social waves of instability, unpredictability and uncertainty.

Most of our students have objective data that make difficulties for searching and using new data (material, technologic and so on). It is almost impossible to realize this process in our culture without the discipline, diligence, responsibility. It is also appropriate to mention there weak learning of school subjects by school leavers. Consequently, the position of our student mainly is a conscious subject of the education system and not the object of attention, and direction there is very contradictive, at least in Russia today. But one should not forget that many people in Russia see in science and education a big and profitable business and, undoubtedly, this affects the youth.

So, the conflict between social order and the system of education in society contradicts the opportunities of this system in satisfying contemporary social demands in this sphere. The roots of this conflict exceed the limits of the educational system.

Russian system of education started to pay less attention to the qualitative parameters of the specialists’ training. It is openly spoken today that students have their own attitude towards the qualitative parameters, teachers and professors have another opinion, chancellors of different universities have different views. Different attitudes to the qualitative education and the concept itself have real independent filling and not always it depends on the state standards of this or that speciality.

Many universities adapt to the “contingent”. At that point it is rather difficult to solve problems of quality, bases of knowledge and intelligence of graduates in the professional training. For many universities, first of all the regional ones, the factor that is breaking down their development and sometimes even existence, is the demographic factor. The system of education has an influence of the demographic crisis results: the number of pupils in a class is getting less and less, schools (mostly rural ones) become less complicated and some of them are closed or changed into eight-year schools. Many universities admit practically all school leavers to a series of specialities because there is no contest and very often there is not enough number of school leavers.

Managers of some universities and institutions have difficulties while fulfilling the plan of admitting to the state budget places. In such cases demographic factor greatly determines development of the existing specialities (the number of groups is decreased, some specialities have no annual admission or they are even closed). Moreover, in many Russian universities there is a struggle between the cathedras for the subjects and teaching load. Unfortunately, in these conditions the quality of training cannot be the priority task and is postponed for a time. The solution to the problems connected with the demographic crisis, the increasing birth rate, improvement of children’s health, teenagers and the youth is a very important socially-historic factor for Russia that can lead to the revival of educational system.

Modern higher education is not often professional, but rather a common condition of further professional self-determination. Besides the competition in the market (global, Russian, regional, etc.), reduction of state financing, the growth of contradictions between expensive science, researches, the need of mass education and the number of regional problems - all of these aspects on the whole lead to the enterprising model of the university. This “achievement” is among the “doubtful title” because mainly it is a forced one and for many universities it is not appropriate. It is strange that today there is a great deal of the university models but none of them think about further development of Russia. In market conditions universities are busy with finding solutions to the current problems, probably leaving strategic questions for future. The influence of higher schools on the educational concept, the impact of the university on the social processes, on the formation of person’s spiritual production should be announced loudly and clearly. In conditions of social uncertainty history gives Russian education the leading role in determining further development of the country.

Literature:

1. Smelser N. Sociology/N. Smelser. – M., 1994

2. Sorokin P. Human being. Civilization. Society. / P. Sorokin. – M., 1992