The priority of education is an important issue that deserves detailed study and consideration. This term implies a serious program, which is aimed at helping children of all ages in intellectual improvement, adaptation in society.
Key Terms
What is the meaning of the term “priority education”? It is interconnected with the following concepts: functional literacy, key competencies. That is why, in the mandatory minimum developed for each academic discipline, key competencies are noted that children must master after completing the course.
Theoretical base
The priority of education is the formation of moral, intellectual, personal, communicative resources of the child. The process involves the transfer in various ways of experience from older generations to children.
Since the school is a very conservative social institution, there is a need for periodic conceptual and organizational changes.
What does the priority of education mean? This definition appears in regulatory documents, for example, in the “Concept of the modernization of Russian education”, which is designed until 2020.
The main task of the school is the creation of a harmonious system of universal skills, abilities, and knowledge.
Priority education - these are the areas in which schools are developing. For example, among the priorities is the development of independence and responsibility in the younger generation, the success of socialization.
GEF general education in the Russian Federation
This document recognizes the priority of education as the need to develop the readiness of schoolchildren to use the skills and abilities acquired by them during the educational process in real life to solve certain problems.
In addition, the new federal standards in the form of a basic achievement consider the development by ninth-graders of the literacy level in the natural sciences, culture, and mathematics, without which a comfortable existence in modern society is impossible.
Priority education requires the allocation of substantial material resources. In addition, significant personnel changes are needed in Russian schools.
Key competency specifics
The recognition of the priority of education has led to the identification of results that should be aimed at changing the content of educational programs. They are key competencies. This term has several meanings at once: competency, ability, ability.
The term "competency" is necessary to determine the level of knowledge and abilities of a person, the possibility of making certain decisions in the subject area, and therefore is used in pedagogy.
The priority of education is a serious aspect on which the implementation of the state order directly depends.
For example, the success of a specialist in the professional field of activity is characterized by the formation of the following “key competencies”:
- initiative;
- independence in decision making;
- tolerance (respect for other people).
It is necessary to educate the younger generation of an active civic position, skill and desire to self-educate throughout life.
Current trends in the Russian Federation
In our country, the main competencies are informational, which involves the skills and abilities of processing and critical analysis of information. Such a key competency is important and relevant, given the flow of information that “falls” on the modern student. A graduate of a comprehensive school of the Russian Federation is obliged to possess social and communicative competence, which involves correlating one's own capabilities and interests with the desires of other people, as well as in the ability to solve practical life problems.
Today, the priority of education is the main task of the functioning of educational institutions. It does not imply the acquisition by schoolchildren of a specific number of knowledge and skills in various subject areas, but the formation of a set of key competencies used by graduates in practice. Only in this case it will be possible to talk about the successful adaptation of graduates to the realities of society.
Some contradictions
Since the priority of education is a system, in addition to key competencies, it also has “subject” ones related to chemistry, physics, biology, and mathematics. In Russian schools they are called universal abilities.
Since the main emphasis is shifting to applied areas of activity, the process of acquiring scientific knowledge remains without due attention.
To summarize
Not all the information that children receive during the educational process, they will need in everyday life. A long time period is required in order to generalize, systematize, and structure individual knowledge.
The teacher should formulate and select information in the framework of his subject area in such a way that the child can fully understand the analyzed issue, choose the optimal algorithm for action in practical situations.
Competencies should not be the sole basis of activity. They are the skills to apply practice-oriented knowledge in social, everyday, professional situations.