Articles

The research presents the contemporary structure of the education system of the Republic of Chad. To study the problem the authors focus on documents regulating education in the country. The authors characterize six cycles of the education system in the Republic of Chad: preschool, primary, general secondary, secondary (including general secondary and technical education and vocational training), higher education, and non-formal education and literacy among the population. The research introduces the education system in one country on the African continent — the Republic of Chad, where only 35% of the population is literate. This is one of the lowest literacy rates on the continent and in the world. The emphasis is placed on the results of the efforts made by the state to improve the quality of education and reduce illiteracy in the country.

The authors present an overview of the current problems in contemporary education on the African continent and ongoing educational reforms. The educational problems of African countries are diverse and different from the problems in developed economies with a high standard of living. These are high illiteracy among the population, incomplete enrollment, learning difficulties in rural areas, high occupancy of classes in primary schools, child labor, informal education, poverty, gender inequality in education, old teacher training programs, problems of nonacceptance by all countries of the law on inclusive education, and accessibility of more people to secondary education.

The research focuses on the problem of developing independent thinking at the university during interactive communication. It analyzes the essence of the following concepts: independent thinking, interactive communication, and personal-oriented learning. The author shows that the essence of interactive communication of students, in the process of which independent thinking develops, lies in personal-oriented learning.

Thinking cannot be understood as a reproductive process: it is always productive. For this reason, the productive development of the thinking of the participants in the educational process is impossible without the development of the internal motivation of the thought process. The thinking of a particular person arises when a person accepts (is included) in the solution of a certain problem. Thinking is always connected with the discovery of new things. For the development of independent thinking, it is important that knowledge and social experience are not given to the student in a ready-made form: they should be obtained during the development of independent thinking. The training aimed at the development of independent thinking is person-oriented training. In fact, the development of independent thinking is possible only when a person (student) is internally motivated to solve a problem, when he or she personally accepts this problem. In this case, that personal acceptance of the problem arises. Personal acceptance of the problem means students solve the problem based on their subjective experience. Simultaneously, the student’s personality develops because its development is determined, among other things, by how much a person has realized his or her experience. The thinking of any participant in the educational process is always the thinking of a specific person, which means that the thinking of any participant in the educational process always belongs to the personal experience of the participant in the educational process. During interactive communication, which is discussed in this research, participants develop their personal experiences by solving problems based on mutual acceptance and understanding. This development of personal experience leads to the development of independent thinking.

This research describes a model of school-university partnership as a mechanism to ensure a continuity of pedagogical education. The projects «Pedagogical internship» and «Psychological and pedagogical classes» are offered in the research as new mechanisms for implementing the activities of the national project «Education».

The authors outline the models for implementing «Psychological and pedagogical classes» in the Sverdlovsk Region, new forms of school-university partnership in the activities of psychological and pedagogical classes with the support of Ural State Pedagogical University. University support is carried out in four areas: scientific and methodological support, competitive and Olympiad movement, career guidance, and educational activities.

The authors present three areas of implementing a teacher internship program: introduction to the best educational and socio-cultural practices, a modular program of competence development, and individual work of teacher trainees with mentors. The employment of teacher internship graduates in educational organizations is identified as a key indicator of the project’s effectiveness.

School-university partnership is a necessary condition to ensure the continuity in the formation of professional competencies of students attending pedagogical universities and the quality of pre-professional training of school students, which includes the readiness for conscious professional self-determination in the teaching profession

The authors identified a range of effects from the implementation of schooluniversity partnership: building multidimensional areas of professional cooperation between teachers and students of different organizations, attracting teaching staff (carriers of best practices, recognized in the professional community) to support students of the teacher training university and psychological and pedagogical classes, including through the use of mentoring practices, and increasing the prestige of professional activity of a teacher

The authors also formulate basic provisions that reveal the substantive, organizational and activity, and communication and technological aspects of the implementation of the school-university partnership.

The research describes the main directions of the development of the system of additional professional pedagogical education. The author distinguishes global trends (the formation of continuous education systems and its development mainly in distance forms) and trends specific to the Russian educational space: the design and implementation of federal state information systems that integrate smaller-scale information systems and transform the functionality of existing educational systems. A challenge is given in relation to the Russian system of additional education, which has been formed recently: “Will it be possible to solve the problem of forming a system to support the self-regulation of professional self-education in the course of special training for teachers as educators?” The solution to this problem generates a bifurcation point for the development of the system of additional education. The research discusses such directions for solving this problem as the formation of a long-term plan for the professional development of each school teacher and the development of meta-regulatory methodological components to support students’ independent work.

When talking about what prompted them to study mathematics, most mathematicians, emphasize the interest that arose at school or in a club when solving some problem or many problems that are “unknown-how-to-solve’’. We see an example of such a task in the famous painting by N. P. Bogdanov-Belsky, which has become a symbol of the Russian school. The interest of future mathematicians was also supported by the university. The reseach discusses the possibility in the 21st century to build mathematical education for all students, not just selected and highly motivated students, based on the tasks that are “unknown-how-tosolve’’ — different for different students. The study of mathematics can become interesting and psychologically comfortable for students of different abilities and inclinations, simultaneously bringing the student’s work closer to the work of an adult mathematician and the needs of real life.

The research identifies the problems related to the lack of pedagogical resources for Russian schools in the foreign language and second foreign language, as well as their linguodidactic training in the context of implementing the norms of the new Federal State Educational Standards of Basic General Education (FGOS LLC). The author analyzes the main professional educational programs (OPOP) of the leading Russian pedagogical universities and draws conclusions about the lack of unity and systematization in the names and content. Inconsistency of curricula and disciplines in the curricula, as well as the lack of interdisciplinary orientation of them, leads to inconsistency in the training of future teachers of foreign languages to contemporary requirements. Many programs are designed to train not future teachers of foreign languages, but specialists who are not related to pedagogy. In implementing some provisions of the new FGOS LLC, regulatory contradictions have been revealed to the legislatively fixed principle of accessibility and free basic general education for schoolchildren and their parents. The author identifies the key trends and prospects for developing Russian language educational policy. Moreover, the author proposes some options for designing Russian basic general education in terms of linguodidactic multilingual training of teachers in implementing of FGOS LLC. The author focuses on the problems identical to the teaching of the languages of the peoples of Russia and the lack of normative mechanisms of interaction “pedagogical university-school-student” as well as guarantees of the implementation of this form of cooperation. This situation deprives Russian schools of the opportunity to ensure the legally enshrined right of schoolchildren and their parents to affordable and free education. Moreover, every year, it removes schoolchildren from a real opportunity to learn foreign languages, pass them as a subject of the Unified State Exam and use foreign languages in real professional activities in the future. In the process of scientific research of the designated problems the author used general pedagogical methods (study, and generalization), theoretical (analysis and synthesis) and private (observation) were used. 

The content and structure of general education are subject to well-defined patterns, According to the concept of Academician of the Russian Academy of Education V.S. Lednev, the most important of them is the balance of two factors: the content of a given subject area (mathematics, computer science, etc.), and a set of invariant types of human activity. These factors reflect aspects of reality that are the most significant from the educational point of view. The transformational activity of people undoubtedly belongs to such aspects. In the contemporary world, this activity is revealed through three key concepts: algorithm, technology, and project. These concepts become system-forming concepts of two subjects: «Informatics» and «Technology». Nowadays, transformative activity is inseparable from the processes of digitalization, which determines the content and structure of these general educational subjects, while the concept of technology plays a leading role. The ideological side of technology originates from the fundamental work of R. Descartes «Reasoning about the method». According to him, any activity should be carried out based on some method that allows for different levels of formalization. This opened up the fundamental possibility of automating the processes of manufacturing products, which made it possible to create a material platform for the future «industrial society». The development of technology is closely related to scientific knowledge. Moreover, the ultimate goal of science (starting with the science of modern times) is precisely the creation of technologies. The link between science and technology remained inseparable for a very long time and ensured the dominance of the formation that supported this link. The emergence of digital technologies, in which the idea of automation is practically brought to its logical conclusion, has radically changed the industrial and social context of technologization. However, its ideological side has undergone minimal changes. The entire context mentioned above is considered in the construction of methodological concepts and the content of the subjects «Informatics» and «Technology».

The research aims to analyze the possibilities of using a digital footprint to reveal the identification signs of a person’s professionalization in the field of education (pedagogy) based on big data technologies through social and search networks. The author identifies the reasons for using social and search networks to develop career guidance practices with schoolchildren. The research presents and analyses data about users of accumulated social networks (e.g. Facebook) and search networks (e.g. Yandex and Google). The author shows possible options for clustering user data in the Vkontakte social network with differentiation of user interests and third-party segmentation determined using neural network algorithms (one of the fundamental technologies of big data), based on a variety of different actions of the user of the social network inside and outside the Internet field. The author proposes a variant of a comparative analysis of user interests confirmed by a third-party segment between a group of people from the pedagogical community and a group of professionals from other fields. The hypothesis about the identity of the pool of interests of the pedagogical community is formulated and tested; their pattern is revealed and projected on the graduates of pedagogical specialties of the Tomsk State Pedagogical College in 2022, working in the specialty. Possible variants of the development of the proposed model of clustering the interests of the pedagogical community and extrapolation of the principles of work to different levels of pedagogical education are shown. The research materials are prepared based on the use of the following methods: theoretical and structural analysis, structural-semiotic analysis, and predictive analytics and simulation modeling based on neural network data.

The research focuses on the issues of the formation of students’ professional self-determination and presents the organizational and pedagogical model for managing students’ professional self-determination and the results of its testing in the municipal information and educational environment. Technological progress calls into question the existence of many contemporary professions. The system of formation of professional self-determination should ensure the rational distribution of labor resources, a person’s career choice, adaptation, and professional development throughout life. It requires changing and updating the organizational and managerial mechanisms existing in educational organizations and municipal educational systems and career guidance methods for students.

During the experimental work, the authors have developed and tested an organizational and pedagogical model for forming students’ professional self-determination/ Moreover, the authors have created a municipal information and educational environment that has interactivity, and multifunctionality and operates in the network interaction of all subjects of the municipal education system. The interdepartmental coordination council for the training of professional personnel provides organizational and managerial support for forming the municipal information and educational environment.

This environment provides students’ information and self-education, meets the needs of all its constituents (i.e., students, parents, educational organizations, employers, etc.), and contributes to the formation of a basic personality culture and necessary competencies for students’ labor and social self-determination.

The municipal information and educational environment include educational organizations, enterprises, and institutions of all forms of ownership, functioning based on network interaction. In this environment, the educational process is carried out through the implementation of advanced pedagogical technologies: open network educational programs, elective courses, and key events implemented by basic educational organizations in the conditions of functioning of a unified municipal information and telecommunication environment (i.e., Internet platforms, educational portals, and public channels of career guidance).

Teaching, developing, educational, communicative, coordinating, and managerial functions are implemented in the information and educational environment of the municipality and the educational organizations that function within it.

The research presents the practice of the University Gymnasium (boarding school) of Lomonosov Moscow State University in the context of the traditions of university education and Russian developments in the field of general education of children with increased educational needs. The authors indicate the historical line of the emergence of university gymnasiums in Russia. The design within the Gymnasium of a complex open nonlinear system capable of self-development, which is based on the integration of academic subjects, project activities, creative formats and broad communication with external subjects of educational, scientific and industrial spheres, make it possible to implement an educational model that forms high meta-subject educational results of students. Key characteristics of designing a gymnasium as a complex open system include openness, which provides a mode of development; interchange of energy and information with other systems; disequilibrium of the state; the ability to perceive external influences; and external influences as «points of growth» of the system. These positions allow us to solve the problems of gymnasium development: building a gymnasium as a practice of developing variable universal education; designing individual trajectories of developing education; modeling forms of cooperation and social construction; introduction interdisciplinarity as a principle of reality research; developing psychological competence; ensuring modularity and nonlinearity of forms of education; providing dynamism of schedules and different ages. These tasks are solved based on modeling the development of the gymnasium in the internal and external spaces. The model’s essence lies in the areas related to the development of technologies for conducting lessons and implementing interdisciplinary team projects within the framework of Lomonosov MSU scientific and educational schools, as well as a spatial and event-based educational environment. Moreover, the essence of the model includes the development of university identity and the construction of an extensive system of external communications based on the Community of University and Innovative Schools and the «Vernadsky» scientific and educational platform.

This paper describes the authors’ long-term pedagogical experience in creating and implementing a special program for systematic repetition, expansion and deepening of the full school course of mathematics in general. This program is based on the principle of the didactic spiral and is applicable both in the framework of regular school lessons and in the implementation of additional education. The work highlights three main stages of student preparation: basic, advanced and creative. Together they contain exactly seven clearly distinguished turns of the didactic spiral. After passing each such round, the student (in this case, as a rule, the future entrant) is more or less ready to solve problems in all sections of the school curriculum at once, which is especially important for participation in Olympiads held during the school year. The first, basic, stage covers two turns of the spiral, which can be conditionally called linear and quadratic. The second stage, advanced, already consists of four turns corresponding to the four main methods of a logical nature: the enumeration of cases, equivalent transformations, the introduction of notation and the conclusion of consequences. The third, creative stage is represented by just one turn, at which all the material passed is already passed from a research point of view. It examines four main methodological approaches available within the school curriculum: algebraic, logical, functional and graphical. The choice and implementation of these approaches in solving specific tasks is the essence of this final round and stage.

The existing system of final certification in the form of the Unified State Exam (USE) has been working for more than one year. However, disputes about its expediency and effectiveness do not subside. Some participants of these discussions rightly indicate that USE allows enrollees from remote regions of Russia to participate in introductory tests, remaining in their region. Their opponents are equally rights to criticize the apparent shortcomings of this form of control and offer to abandon the USE in favor of the Soviet system of the final certification, in which final exams at school and introductory tests in higher or secondary special educational institutions were not combined. Agreeing with supporters of the organization of local exams, the authors consider the arguments of opponents of the USE. The idea of a project called the USE can be conditionally formulated as follows: to create a line of tasks that makes it possible to compare all high school graduates by the level of training, rank them based on the results of this comparison, and distribute them between universities and colleges. For this reason, the USE is a mandatory exam for all school graduates and is conducted using a single technology. What issues are discussed in the disputes around this project? First, many are perplexed by the unreasonable identification of each school graduate with an enrollee for some university or colleges. Second, a high percentage of dropouts among first-year students indicates a weak correlation between the results of such measurements and the readiness of enrollees to study at universities or colleges. This publication is devoted to the analyzing of the problems discussed within these topics, as well as proposals on possible ways to resolve them.

The authors analyze the activity of children’s public organizations of the 20th century. The research discusses the relevance of creating «Bolshaya Peremena» clubs in educational organizations. The activity of these organization is formed based on the conceptual ideas of scientific schools of V.S. Mukhina «Phenomenology of the development and existence of personality» and L.I. Novikova «A systemic approach to the upbringing and socialization of children and youth». A methodological basis lies in presenting the results of fundamental research by such psychologists and teachers as L.S. Vygotsky, L.I. Novikova, V.S. Mukhina and N.L. Selivanova. The essence of their research lies in recognizing the priorities of personal development, the values of the childhood period and the activities of the younger generation. The research considers the activities of the «Bolshaya Peremena» clubs as a natural social environment in which the younger generation acquires personal and acute social meanings of life and activity and «undergoes» preparation for the productive realization of their potential in the current conditions of public life. The authors describe the educational space of the «Bolshaya Peremena» clubs, which aim to create an environment conducive to creating favorable conditions for the personal development of children and adolescents and the activation of personal and social maturity. The «Bolshaya Peremena» clubs are built on the principle of a child-adult community, which is based on the democratic style of adult influence on the child. The ability of an adult to show identification increases the child›s self-esteem, mood and social activity. Children transfer the actions of identification assigned by an adult into communication with peers: the club space becomes a school of social relations for children. In conclusion, the authors express possible risks of implementing the considered project. The essence of these risks come down to the erosion of effective elements of pedagogical practice in connection with the creation of the Russian Movement of Children and Youth, founded by «Bolshaya Peremena» and the subsequent integration of existing children›s movements and communities. The authors emphasize that the «Bolshaya Peremena» clubs are exclusively voluntary public associations, the main role of which is assigned to schoolchildren.

On December 12, 2022, Irina Georgievna Hangeldieva, Professor, Associate Professor of Philosophy, teacher of the Department of Educational Systems Management, Faculty of Pedagogical Education, Lomonosov Moscow State University, died.

Review of the monograph

Kuznetsova, V.V., Mashkina, O.A. The Evolution of China’s Education System: Monograph. – Moscow, Russia: KURS, 2022. –234 p.