What Is Expected from Vocational Education in Russia?

Abstract

Vladimir Blinov, D.Sc. in Pedagogy, Professor in the Chair of Pedagogics, Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow, Russian Federation, award winner in Pinsky Awards Education Research Competition (2010). Email: Endless111@yandex.ru
Address: Bld. 1, 1 Malaya Pirogovskaya St., Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation.

Marina Artamonova, Ph.D. in Sociology, leading researcher at Federal Institute for Education Development under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russian Federation, award winner in Pinsky Awards Education Research Competition (2010). Email: mvartamonova@mail.ru
Address: Bld. 1, 9 Chernyakhovskogo St., Moscow, 129319, Russian Federation.

This is an analysis of changes in the Russian vocational education system after the educational standard was legally updated in 2011. Vocational education is regarded as an investment in human capital. As the competency building approach puts it, efficiency of education is achieved when educational results can satisfy the economic needs.

The authors discuss the possibility of efficient integration of the educational system into the modern economic system. They also describe changes in education required for such integration and factors that prevent it. Priority measures to eliminate the latter are determined.

Commissioning of educational services has changed quite a lot for the last two decades. Governmental and social control over the ultimate educational results has been getting progressively stricter. New educational programs have been emerging at the intersection of higher and secondary education. Education is believed to be an instrument of social stratification. The authors reveal the major trends in its development, which are about dividing educational programs into traditional and exclusively vocational, and about creating programs to provide qualified contractors. BAS programs have some distinct advantages, as they satisfy the demands of all educational market players — the government, the society, the candidates, and their parents. A new type of university is about to emerge — the elite university designed for the most talented students from affluent families.

Rendering educational services comfortable for all players and customers of the process is claimed to be the paramount condition and criterion of education quality and the top priority goal of education modernization.