In-service Education

In-service Education

In-service Education

In-service education is a constant and indispensable part of the National system of continuous education. It facilitates the enhancement, development and updating of knowledge and professional skills. It also offers the possibility of obtaining new skills and qualifications, specialization or professions through degree programs, professional training or vocational experience acquired earlier, as well as giving an ample opportunity for individual self-study irrespective of one's age.

Today Ukraine has a sufficiently advanced network of educational institutions and in-service training departments - there are more than 500 in total, including 244 in- branch ministries and departments, 185 in the Ministry of Education and Science system, and 93 non-governmental educational institutions. The main organizational principles of in-service education include:

a scientific approach , humanism, democracy, unity, inclusiveness, differentiation, integration, continuity, modularity, personalization, end-through nature;
close connection to market transformation processes, different forms of ownership and management;
orientation toward viable and promising fields of human activity in response to the needs of the labor market;
compliance with state regulations of educational standards.

The main goals of in-service education are:

to fulfill the demands of the national economy with qualified personnel, provide continuous development of each specialist's professional abilities, develop his/her intellectual and overall cultural level , as well as to provide necessary professional knowledge and skills;
to provide an opportunity to acquire new skills, another specialization on the basis of a degree program, professional training or vocational experience acquired earlier, develop professional knowledge and skills;
to introduce a flexible system of continuous education and self-education, to provide adult continuous education.

The system of in-service teacher-training education established in Ukraine is characterized by a well-defined organizational structure, and a coherent system of educational and methodological institutions. The main functions of the institutions are to improve scientific, theoretical and methodological training, professional skills, broaden general cultural horizons of schoolteachers, personnel and the system of education administration institutions.

The functioning system of in-service teacher training education of Ukraine as a complex of institutions embraces: Central Institute (CPPE - Central Post-Diploma Education Institute), 26 Oblast Institutes, the Crimea Republican Institute of In-service Teacher Training Education, 19 faculties of skill improvement in teacher training universities and institutes, commercial teacher training and management personnel skill improvement centers.

The main types of in-service training are:

educational activities aimed at providing training, retraining, skills improvement of teachers;
introduction of a flexible system of continuous education of the teaching staff to ensure adaptation of teachers to carry out professional activities under quickly changing social and economic relations;
provide optimal regularity and duration of educational terms with regard to the established order of professional certification;
introduction of up-to-date teacher-training technologies as well as advanced national and international experience in educational management and continuous education at all its stages;
development of basic requirements expected of education providers and institution managers, and methodologists, implementing scientifically and methodologically based teacher proficiency testing system (testing, certification);
development and introduction of different types of course training;
development of scientific, methodological, expert recommendations for skilled management personnel resources creation and training;
carrying out basic scientific and applied research on the problems of educational development, participating in state, branch and regional scientific programs, including government contracts as well as business contracts with other organizations and educational institutions;
fulfillment of obligations under state contract as well as other agreements on training specialists with higher education;
training of scholars and teacher-training professionals for the system of in-service training;
to provide methodological, informational, consultative assistance to higher educational institutions of I-IV levels of accreditation and institutes of in-service education on the issues of management and teacher-training personnel skills development;
to provide remunerated educational, expert, publishing, informational and others services.

At the present moment one of the top priorities in Ukraine is the modernization of in-service education system, teacher-training in particular, which is defined by UNESCO as a "queen of education" and gives every specialist an opportunity to bolster and enhance both general and professional knowledge and skills. The strategy of in-service education is undergoing change at the moment: educational institutions have been tasked to work on the development of the educational system rather than on its functioning. It places more emphasis on research than on re-transmitting tasks, directed at assessing educational needs, studying the in-service educational system as a junction of on-going processes, participating in drafting regional programs on the development of education and so on.

Taking all these issues into consideration the system of in-service education should be reformed, namely through:

developing a normative and legal basis (there is no Law on in-service education, Regulation on Institution of in-service education, Regulation on Licensing and Accreditation of Institutions of in-service education, methodological recommendations on the organization of the academic curriculum in institutions of in-service education, teaching loads);
defining the status of in-service education institutions as institutes of higher education;
improving infrastructure and facilities of institutions of in-service training;
regulating the system of social guaranties and protection of the personnel of institutions of in-service education (salaries, pensions, terms of vacation and so on).

The system of in-service education is based upon a concept of continuous education, which is widely adopted as a strategy in developed countries of the world. Its cornerstones are the systematic, continuous, and individual approach to the process of education, as well as the tendency to make the system of education more fundamental, human and humanitarian.

The system of in-service training for skill improvement has several advantages in comparison to basic professional education. First of all, it is more flexible to rapid changes in social, economical as well as technical and technological conditions. Hence, as rule it is closely connected with real practical activities that allow the achievement of the desired results quicker; students have an opportunity to asses practically suggested improvements, and they can immediately participate in testing, development and realization of these improvements.

The system of in-service training for skill improvement has a number of particular features:

it is educational services market oriented (because of the absence of state order per se);
higher level of requirements with respect to the quality of personnel qualification to solve problems in a transitional society as well as the establishment and development of a competitive environment and wide dissemination of educational services.

At the present moment the methods of making qualitative changes to content, forms and methods of in-service education consist of an individual approach to the process of education according to the strategy "personality - management subject".

With such an approach emphasis is placed on in-service education from merely normative content of transmission to development of individual systems of vocational models, including personal-humanistic orientation, systematic insight of teacher-training reality, major branch orientation, knowledge of modern teacher-training technologies, international and innovation experience, and the formation of creative skills, reflexive teacher-training culture.