Text 2 Major Developments in Higher Education Today
The new century has brought changes practically in all spheres of global communication and global economy. This directly made an impact in education sector leading to several structural changes in the form, organisation and delivery of educational services.
• Expansion:The share of highly-qualified persons is increasing. This is a world-wide trend not limited to economically advanced societies. Changing employment structures, increasing expectations of educational participation and the academization of a growing number of professions, promote the expansion of higher education.
• Differentiation:Apart from providing scientific training in a given subject, study programmes must meet differentiated social requirements and convey technical skills which higher education has not offered so far.
• Greater flexibility:The disappearance of traditional professional patterns and growing individualisation call for a multiplication of study options. Individual combinations of studies should be allowed; students should acquire self-organisation and self-upgrading skills.
In terms of contents, the emphasis lies increasingly on the transmission and acquisition of key competencies, or multi-functional skills. These skills comprise competencies to be acquired in addition to subject-matter know-how and are to enable students to cope with the requirements of different work settings and cultures, as well as with work-related crises.
• Employabilityis to ensure a stronger link between higher education and practice, since higher education which is purely based on technical contents is no longer considered adequate to meet the needs of professional practice.
• Internationalisation strategies are designed to promote international mobility and convey intercultural skills.
• Lifelong learningstands for further qualifications which employed persons acquire independently and for which universities offer demand-driven qualification programmes, a process which increasingly blurs the borders to traditional subject studies. The notion of lifelong learning is to enable and widen participation in higher education regardless of age, status or gender.
• Acting with a view to quality and competitiveness: Trends which are making themselves felt already today will be prolonged in a quest for quality and competitiveness.
New methods of teaching/learning
The use of media (transparencies, posters, flipcharts) to visualise interrelations, and beamers including related software applications, electronic media for large-scale projections and videoconferencing.
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• Exemplary learning by experience, i.e. forms of knowledge transmission which consist in effective guidance towards a self-reliant acquisition of knowledge and a rational and critical handling of information using simulation and exercise studies in lectures, project work and project-oriented learning (POL) to replace structured ex-cathedra lecturing.
• Study programmes which integrate different places of learning, e.g. dual study programmes which combine company-based training with university studies, or integrated study programmes for students with a professional background which combine three places of learning: the university, professional practice, and self-studies in a private setting.
• Mobile learning(“ubiquitous” learning), i.e. exploiting mobile technologies which enable learning at any place, such as CD ROM-enabled learning, and Web-based teaching and learning.
• Problem-oriented learning (POL), which employs teaching and learning methods for working on issues in small-size groups, is currently used in blended learning arrangements. POL wants to lead students to study specific issues independently in selected steps that are characteristic of a profession. Typical of POL, an exemplary learning process with a specific link to practice that is geared to interaction and self-reliance is triggered in small groups, and prompts different forms of student cooperation. By exemplary learning from experience, students are empowered to cope with tasks during their studies in a problem-oriented and interdisciplinary approach.
Text 3 Qualification Raising and Staff Retraining
Education of adults. Deviation from the command-and-control system of management required to review the role and place of the postgraduate staff education system, bringing it in compliance with the social and economic situation in order to adapt the existing postgraduate education system, considering prospects of the national economy development, to market requirements and thus ensure its effective functioning.
Proceeding from the actual conditions of the Republic of Belarus, a decision was made to create, within the educational system, such educational institutions according to the levels of education where efforts will be concentrated on scientific support of this trend and on improvement of qualification and retraining of educational officials and specialists. For this purpose the Republican Institute of Vocational Education, the Republican Institute of Innovation Technologies were established within the Belarusian State Polytechnic Academy.
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There are 130 after graduation educational institutions where about 450,000 persons are retrained annually. Approximately 40,000 students are educated annually in 120 professional areas at 23 qualification and retraining educational institutions within the system of the Ministry of Education.
The head organization in the qualification raising system is the Postgraduate Education Academy. It is charged with the functions of organising, scientific supervision, co-ordination and methodical supply of target training of scientific-pedagogical and scientific staff for regional institutes for qualification raising and retraining of education personnel. In the Academy, they established the data bank for advanced innovation methods and pedagogical experience on which basis the assistance is rendered to region and other institutes of qualification raising, to all teachers and pedagogues. The Academy computer network is connected to the International Internet Network.
The state policy in the field of postgraduate education is based on the principles of complete satisfaction of educational institutions needs in highly qualified staff, drawing up efficient strategy of development of functioning mechanisms of the qualification improvement and retraining system, ensuring economic, legal, organizational and other warranties in this field.
In compliance with the Law of Education in the Republic of Belarus, people have the right to obtain education independently, for this purpose people's universities, schools, including evening and correspondence departments of secondary special and higher educational institutions, the external system, various programs of retraining, qualification improvement for adults, etc. have been created. Adult self-education is also carried out with the aid of libraries and other information centers and public associations.
Most scientific pedagogical investigations are performed in the National Institute of Education, the Republican Institute of Vocational Education, the Republican Institute of Higher School at the Belarusian State University, the Academy of Postgraduate Education and higher pedagogical educational institutions.
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