Problems of accessibility of higher education for the rural population. Problems of accessibility of higher education. Social factors of the Russian education system

The general socio-economic and demographic situation in the republic in lately led to aggravation of problems of access to quality education and subsequent employment of young people living in rural areas.

They say and write a lot about rural schools. Contents like scientific works, and pseudo-scientific research networks of rural secondary schools It's far from clear. However, events in our republic are inexorably developing in the direction that schools are being cut. The economy must be economical, and the costs of maintaining rural schools are considered ineffective.

Optimization of rural schools in order to develop education in rural areas and create conditions to ensure accessibility and high quality of rural education is one of priority areas modernization of education in the PMR. From analytical reports heads of rural schools, it follows that, thanks to the opening of specialized classes, over the past two years the quality of education of graduates has improved, and the percentage of admission to higher and secondary vocational educational institutions has increased. But, as school directors note, the vast majority of rural school graduates who enter universities do not return to their native village. Therefore, no matter how paradoxical it may seem, more accessible higher education contributes to the fact that the village remains without an influx of young personnel.

The main problem of rural society: lack of life prospects

for most village residents. Depression and the burden of collapsed economic problems isolate the family, leaving it alone with its troubles. There is a sharp decline in the living standards of many families, a deterioration in the social well-being of adolescents and young people, and parents with minor children. The consequence is the collapse of spiritual values, manifested in the loss of ideals, confusion, pessimism, crisis of self-realization, lack of trust in older generations and official government structures, which gives rise to legal nihilism. But at the same time, the only stably functioning social institution a school remained in the village: “The very presence of a teacher in the village, a rural intellectual who sets the cultural level of the environment, is very important for us. Remove the teacher from the village and you will get a degraded environment. A rural school, without a doubt, is a means of cultivating the environment and social stability of rural society.”

The rural teacher also finds himself in this same environment of spiritual vacuum. Today there is a need to include the Pridnestrovian State Institute development of education, the most effective of the many ways to preserve teacher culture in rural areas, namely the system of advanced training for teachers on a cumulative basis. Such a system of activities includes:

System seminars with on-site visits to individual organizations general education;

work as part of the teaching staff, ensuring the involvement of rural teachers in the organizational and technological support of seminars at the republican level on an equal basis with representatives of urban general education organizations, primary and secondary organizations vocational education(conferences, exhibitions, presentations, etc.).

A society in conditions of general modernization requires teenagers to be able to quickly adapt to new conditions of existence. A teacher working in rural conditions faces a problem: how to preserve the moral qualities of a growing person in conditions of fierce market competition, a shift in the value vector of the individual from high ideals to the ideals of material wealth, and profit.

During the school period, children, adolescents, and youth are not consistently included in the sphere of social activity, do not participate in the discussion of the problems that adults live with - labor, economic, environmental, socio-political, etc. And this leads to infantilism, selfishness, and spiritual emptiness , to acute internal conflict and artificial delay in the personal development of young people, depriving them of the opportunity to take an active social position. The teaching staff considers the most effective means formation and development of an active social position of growing village residents special forms school government. The specificity of these forms is that they combine, on the one hand, the active participation of students in traditional events for our territory (for example, in school self-government days), on the other hand, they include them in social life native village. Among the non-traditional means of forming an active life position of growing villagers is the functioning of Children's Services that take part in village gatherings, work organizing creative exhibitions of joint family works of students and their parents, and much more.

Another problem is the failure to take into account the gender, age, individual and other characteristics of students. Not all types of activities organized by rural schools contribute to the development of spiritual culture in children and adolescents. Often the emphasis is on the quality of knowledge, rather than on the mental and spiritual development of schoolchildren. However, teachers of rural educational organizations initiating modernization processes note a number of important aspects:

• · the school, being in most cases the only cultural center of the village, has a significant influence on its development; it is important to establish close interaction between the school and the social environment in order to use its potential in educational work;
• · limited opportunities for self-education for rural schoolchildren,
• · lack of institutions additional education, cultural and leisure institutions necessitate the organization cognitive activity students during extracurricular hours at school and the feasibility of using circle associations for this purpose, club type, which includes schoolchildren of different ages, teachers, parents, social partners (representatives of the village administration) depending on their interests and abilities;
• · in a rural school, favorable conditions are created for the use of the surrounding nature, traditions preserved in the village, folk art, and rich spiritual potential in educational work;
• · in the life of a rural schoolchild, labor activity occupies a significant place, which, with irrational organization of changes in the types of activities of a teenager, affects the decrease in the importance of education in general in the village.

Rural teachers admit that the school’s work with families is insufficient, which largely determines the civic passivity of parents in relation to the fate of their children. Unfortunately, at this stage, in most rural general education organizations, work with parents is one-time events. The effectiveness of these events is indisputable, but it is not possible to assess their systemic effectiveness in promoting civic engagement among parents.

It also seems problematic that parents, teachers and educators consider health to be the leading values, and real life In rural areas, studies note an increase in drug trafficking, smoking, and drunkenness. It seems interesting in terms of formation value attitude to the health of future defenders of the Fatherland, which involves organizing a field camp in the summer. The idea of ​​paramilitary camps is certainly not innovative. However, this approach to the conditions, factors, and details of the implementation of this idea makes it truly effective. For the camp director, educators, and leaders of initial military training, each shift in such a camp is carefully simulated business game. Boys living in a militarized environment learn to act in emergency situations, learn the basics of first aid, and learn interesting information about new military equipment. Feeling the elbow of a comrade, realizing my responsibility for his life in conditions emergency, teenagers acquire a different perspective on own life and health.

Unfortunately, the majority of teachers from rural educational organizations consider their main task to be the transfer of knowledge, skills and abilities to students. However, the question of effective application in life, the knowledge, skills and abilities acquired at school remain for independent decisions by graduates and their parents.

One of the most important factors for success in modern life is access to up-to-date information. It is no secret that residents of many rural settlements are deprived of the ability to connect to information networks. This fact causes the greatest damage to that part of the rural population that is capable and ready to educate themselves. The implementation of distance learning becomes impossible.

In overcoming the education crisis in the context of socio-economic changes, we understand that this is only possible on the basis of a detailed strategy that takes into account both the real situation in the field of education, the trends and relationships operating in it, and the individual affairs of each school.

In our time, the educational capabilities of rural society have decreased.

The school becomes the only means of spiritual revival of the village. Of course, one school cannot do everything. crisis situations, but a rural school can help a growing person implement the principle of free civil choice, ready for a reasonable choice of life positions. It is such a graduate who will be successful in life and work.

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In conditions market economy Accessibility issues are of particular importance higher education, which are most relevant in countries focused on stable socio-economic growth and development, since it is within the framework of the system of higher professional education that the country’s intellectual potential is created, competitiveness is ensured through the development and introduction of new high technology, and also due to the fact that in a market economic system the state does not guarantee higher education to all citizens. The article provides a definition of accessibility to higher education. Availability is considered as a socio-economic category, as it reflects socio-economic relations regarding production and sales educational services. Differences in opportunities for obtaining higher education are identified, on the basis of which a classification of types of accessibility to higher education is made: “economic”, “territorial”, “social”, “intellectual and physical”, “academic”; which helps to determine the priorities for the development of the education system as a whole in the conditions of innovative development of the country. Factors of each type of accessibility to higher education that have the greatest impact on the formation of intentions, desires and opportunities to obtain higher education have been identified.

accessibility of higher education

types of accessibility

factors of accessibility of higher education

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2. Anikina E.A., Ivankina L.I. Accessibility of higher education: problems, opportunities, prospects: monograph. – Tomsk: Tomsk Polytechnic University Publishing House, 2010. – 144 p.

3. Ivankina E.A., Ivankina L.I. Material and intellectual accessibility of higher education in the context of sociological discourse // Bulletin of the Buryat State University. Philosophy, sociology, political science, cultural studies. – 2009. – Issue. 6. – pp. 88–92.

4. Dmitrieva Yu.A. Study of the accessibility of higher education in the sociology of education // Almanac modern science and education. – Tambov: Certificate, 2007. – No. 1. – P. 82–83.

5. Availability of higher education in Russia / resp. ed. S.V. Shishkin. Independent Institute social policy. – M.: Publishing house “Pomatur”, 2004. – 500 p.

7. Roshchina Ya.M. Inequality of access to education: what do we know about it? // Problems of accessibility of higher education / resp. ed. Shishkin S.V. Independent Institute for Social Policy. – M.: “SIGNAL”, 2003. – P. 94–149.

Over the past decade, a number of structural changes have occurred in the system of higher professional education in Russia, which led to the growth and strengthening of the following trends:

● growth in the total number of students;

● reduction in the number of higher educational institutions

● reduction in the value of education;

● discrepancy between received professional qualifications and labor market needs;

● reducing the role of higher education as a social elevator.

These changes call into question the quality of higher education, as well as its accessibility. The problem of accessibility to higher education is not new, but recent years it is increasingly attracting the attention of researchers and social policy developers both in Russia and abroad.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the types of accessibility of higher professional education and the factors that determine it.

The issues of higher education, in particular its accessibility, have received a lot of attention from both domestic and foreign scientists.

The problem of accessibility of higher education in modern conditions, as well as accessibility assessment tools, were studied in their works by the following researchers: E.M. Avraamova, E.D. Voznesenskaya, N.V. Goncharova, L.D. Gudkov, M.A. Drugov, B.V. Dubin, O.Ya. Dymarskaya, D.L. Konstantinovsky, M.D. Krasilnikova,
A.G. Levinson, A.S. Leonova, E.L. Lukyanova, T.M. Maleva, V.G. Nemirovsky, E.L. Omelchenko, E.V. Petrova, Ya.M. Roshchina, O.I. Stuchevskaya, G.A. Cherednichenko, S.V. Shishkina and others.

Among foreign scientists whose research object was also higher education and assessment of its accessibility, one can note such as L. Althusser, A. Asher, B. Bernstein, R. Bourdon, P. Bourdieu, D. Johnstone, R. Giraud, Zh. -TO. Passeron, A. Servenant and others.

However, despite the fairly high degree of development of the topic and the presence of a large number of studies, there is no common understanding of the term accessibility of higher education and the factors influencing accessibility. Having analyzed the work of researchers, it can be noted that there is no comprehensive approach to assessing accessibility factors; the problem is considered, as a rule, one-sidedly, without taking into account the influence of factors of different etymologies. In most cases, one can observe a combination of the concepts of accessibility of higher education and the opportunity to obtain higher education, when the accessibility of higher education is considered only from the standpoint of the material component. Let us note that this approach is very unproductive and does not allow for a comprehensive analysis of existing problems.

The widespread understanding of the accessibility of higher education as the opportunity to enter a university and fully study there becomes insufficient, since in reality it is not the presence of a diploma that is of paramount importance, but which university issued this diploma, and what knowledge and social connections the student received during his studies.

In this regard, the concept of “accessibility” should be interpreted as a socio-economic category. From this point of view, by the accessibility of higher education we will understand the accessibility of the main structural elements of higher professional education, namely higher educational institutions that provide high quality services, regardless of their organizational and legal forms, types and types, implementing educational programs and state educational standards of various levels and orientations, for the bulk of the population, regardless of socio-economic factors, as well as the availability of entrance exams, educational programs and educational standards from an intellectual point of view for the bulk of the population.

Thus, the accessibility of higher education in this work is considered from the perspective of a socio-economic category as an opportunity to choose a higher educational institution, enroll and successfully study in it from various social groups population.

The main types of accessibility to higher education and the factors that determine it are presented in the table.

First of all, it is worth noting a group of economic factors. These include the level of family income, fees for higher education (direct tuition fees, tuition fees), as well as associated costs for obtaining higher education, costs for increasing human capital. That is, in this case, paid education means the entire set of expenses borne by the student’s family. The expenses necessary to cover direct costs are taken into account - payment for school, training, education at a university, and alternative costs - maintaining a child during education. When examining these factors, attention should also be paid to such indicators as the number budget places in universities, the number of places in dormitories, the availability and size of scholarships, the availability of programs, benefits for various groups of the population. It is necessary to take into account the relationship between individual indicators. That is, for example, an indicator in the form of the ratio of the number of places in universities to the number of potential students will be more informative than the same data considered separately. The availability of higher education is also affected by the ratio of state and non-state universities.

Also, the territorial factor, in particular the place of residence of the family, has a significant influence. Residents of rural areas have fewer opportunities to obtain higher education and are less competitive in entrance exams than city residents. To a greater extent, this is justified by the higher costs borne by families furthest from the location of the university where the student is (will be) studying. Exploring this group factors, you should pay attention to such an indicator as the number of universities in a certain territory.

A group of social factors also has an influence. These include the status of the family, the sociocultural capital of the family, in particular the level of education, and the qualifications of the parents of potential students. Such indicators as the number of children in the family, two-parent family or single-parent family, etc. are also important. A potential student’s admission to a university is influenced by the person’s social environment.

Factors and types of accessibility to higher education*

	Economic availability	Territorial accessibility	Social availability	Intellectual and physical availability	Academic availability
Factors of accessibility to higher education	family income, family economic well-being, amount of savings	region of residence	nationality, gender, religion, values, norms, cultural differences, family composition	physical, mental, mental state(health)	type of educational institution, quality of education at previous levels of education, volume and quality of additional educational services received
	fee (cost) of education, expenses for higher education	size settlement	education, occupation, qualifications of parents and other family members	inherited qualities	awareness of training opportunities in various specialties at various universities
	relationship between the amount of expenditure on education and per capita family income	level of urbanization	connections between parents, relatives and friends	own human capital potential student (level of intellectual and physical abilities)	availability of benefits, advantages when entering a university
	share of support in education costs	number of universities in the region	social status and level of adaptation to life	knowledge gained	form of study (full-time, part-time, evening) at the university
	home library size		level of “social justice” in society	personal motivation for obtaining higher education	university infrastructure (presence/absence of dormitories, their size, etc.)

Attention should also be paid to the personal characteristics of a potential student, which undoubtedly affect the degree of accessibility of higher education for a person. These include characteristics such as health level, religion, gender, nationality, values, norms, etc. This list also includes the intellectual level of the potential student. And it directly depends on the quality of the knowledge acquired and on the level of teaching at school. These indicators are also related to the abilities and diligence of schoolchildren.

It is imperative to take into account that there is a correlation between many of the above factors. For example, if a potential student lives far from the university, in a rural area (territorial accessibility factor), and there is no place in a dormitory (one of the academic accessibility factors), then it will be necessary to rent an apartment (associated costs, economic accessibility factor). Which ultimately will further aggravate and strengthen the problem of accessibility of higher education for this category of students or students in a similar situation.

Thus, the degree of accessibility of higher education can vary significantly depending on influencing factors, many of which are closely related and can reinforce each other (both positively and negatively) or, conversely, smooth out this influence.

Thus, the factors influencing the accessibility of higher education are:

● economic (family income, economic well-being, amount of savings, cost of studying at a university, number of budget places, share of support in education costs, etc.);

● territorial (place of residence, level of urbanization, number of universities in a certain territory, etc.);

● social (social and cultural capital of the family, family status, level of education of parents, social environment, number of children in the family, etc.);

● intellectual and physical (personal characteristics of a potential student, in particular the level of his physical and intellectual abilities, his own human capital, etc.);

● academic (the ratio of the number of places in universities to the number of potential students, the quality of knowledge acquired at previous levels of education, the form of study at the university, etc.).

In general, if we take each of the above factors separately, then none of them is predetermining in the formation of the intention or desire to obtain a higher education, but in combination they give a total effect that determines the motivation and, most importantly, the practice of accumulating opportunities for entering university

The study was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation as part of the research project of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation (Ensuring accessibility of higher education and improving its quality in conditions innovative transformations in Russia), project No. 14-32-01043a1.

Reviewers:

Nekhoroshev Yu.S., Doctor of Economics, Professor, Consulting Professor of the Department of Economics, National Research Tomsk polytechnic university, Tomsk;

Kazakov V.V., Doctor of Economics, Professor of the Department of Finance and Accounting, National Research Tomsk state university, Tomsk.

The work was received by the editor on December 10, 2014.

Bibliographic link

Anikina E.A., Lazarchuk E.V., Chechina V.I. AVAILABILITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION AS A SOCIO-ECONOMIC CATEGORY // Fundamental Research. – 2014. – No. 12-2. – P. 355-358;
URL: http://fundamental-research.ru/ru/article/view?id=36232 (access date: 10/30/2019). We bring to your attention magazines published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural Sciences"

I also break spears here. The majority of the population (according to the results of a study by A.G. Levinson) continues to believe that education, including higher education, should be free. But in fact in state universities already pays more than 46% of total number students. Today, 57% are studying in their first year at state universities on a paid basis. If we take into account the contingent of non-state universities, it turns out that in Russia currently every second student pays for higher education (in fact, 56% are already studying on a paid basis Russian students). At the same time, the cost of training, both in the state and non-state sectors of higher education, is constantly growing.

Already in 2003, tuition fees at state universities exceeded tuition fees at non-state universities. In prestigious higher educational institutions Tuition fees can exceed the average by 2-10 times, depending on the type of university and specialty, as well as the location of the educational institution.

Families spend significant amounts of money not only on studying at a university, but also on entering higher education. According to sociological research, families spend about 80 billion rubles on the school-university transition. This is a lot of money, so changing the rules for admission to universities (for example, introducing a unified state exam - Unified State Exam) will inevitably affect someone's material interests. Of the above amount, the largest share comes from tutoring (approximately 60%). It is unlikely that tutoring in itself can be considered an absolute evil. Firstly, it was, for example, back in Tsarist Russia, practiced in Soviet era, has blossomed into the present. Secondly, in mass production - a modern education- this is mass production, the need for individual adjustment of a product or service to the needs of the consumer is inevitable. This is precisely the normal role of a tutor.

But in recent years, for many tutors (although by no means all), this role has significantly transformed: it began to consist in the fact that the tutor was not so much supposed to teach something within the framework of school curriculum, and not so much to provide knowledge in accordance with the requirements of not universities, but a specific university, but to ensure admission to the chosen university. This meant that payment was taken not for providing knowledge and skills, but for certain information (about the features of exam tasks, for example, or how to solve a specific problem) or even for informal services (trouble, follow up, etc.). Therefore, it became necessary to hire a tutor only and exclusively from the educational institution where the child was going to enroll (this applies both to the provision of some exclusive information and to the provision of informal services). This does not mean that admission to all universities was necessarily associated with tutors or informal relationships, but it became more and more difficult to enter prestigious universities or prestigious specialties without appropriate “support.” In general, the idea began to emerge that good teaching at school is no longer enough to enter the university that would allow one to hope for a successful professional career in the future.

Sociological studies have shown that parents are still inclined to believe that “you can study at a well-known university for free, but it is no longer possible to enter it without money.” An alternative to money is connections. In a “regular” university, there may still be enough knowledge itself, but the knowledge itself is already differentiated into just knowledge, and knowledge taking into account the requirements of a “specific university.” And this knowledge is only provided either by university courses or, again, by tutors.

38.4% of applicants focus only on knowledge. At the same time, focusing only on knowledge during admission in this context means that the applicant and his family are not inclined to enter into informal relationships in order to enter a university. But this does not at all indicate that such applicants will not resort to the services of tutors, it’s just that the perception of a tutor in this case is different - this is a person (a teacher or university lecturer, just some kind of specialist) who imparts knowledge, and does not “help with admission” .

The focus on knowledge and money and/or connections among 51.2% of applicants suggests that the applicant (his family) believes that knowledge alone may not be enough, and it is necessary to insure oneself either with money or connections. In this case, the tutor performs a dual role - he must both teach and provide support to his client upon admission. The forms of this support can be different - from reaching the right people to transferring money. Sometimes, however, a tutor can only teach, and intermediaries for transferring money are sought independently of him. And finally, the third category of applicants openly rely only on money or connections. In this case, a tutor can also be hired, but his payment is the actual mechanism of payment for admission: this is the person who pushes into the university - we are no longer talking about the transfer of knowledge.

The extremely high proportion of those who consider it necessary to use money and connections when entering a university (more than 2/3) indicates that public opinion arise persistent clichés, which university you can go to “without money,” and which one “only with money or connections.” Accordingly, admission strategies are built, a choice of university is made, and ideas about the accessibility or inaccessibility of higher education among various groups of the population are formed. It is characteristic that the concept of accessibility is increasingly complemented by the words “quality education”. In this context, what is significant is not that higher education has become accessible at all, but that certain segments of it have become even more inaccessible.

career fee education

3. The role of the Unified State Exam in accessibility of higher education

Because of this, one state exam should and will be perceived in society in an extremely ambiguous manner. The idea of ​​the Unified State Exam as a tool to combat corruption in entrance exams or tutoring (which is far from the same thing) does not exhaust even a small fraction of the understanding (or misunderstanding) of this instrument. When they say that the Unified State Exam increases the accessibility of higher education, then in a situation where it has already become accessible, this statement is of little value. The most important is the answer to the question of who exactly and what kind of education will become available as a result of the introduction of the Unified State Exam. It is obvious that a prestigious education will never be enough for everyone - that’s why it is prestigious (which includes a certain restriction of access). It will also not be possible to create mass good higher education in a short time (and in Russia over 15 years the number of university students has grown 2.4 times). The process of massification of higher education is proceeding in the country at an unprecedentedly rapid pace (similar processes in the republics former USSR, as well as other countries with transition economies, have not yet acquired such proportions), and the quality of education in its traditional sense in these conditions will inevitably fall. Therefore, if earlier it was possible to talk about fixing a certain quality and expanding accessibility, now the achieved level of accessibility must be ensured with at least some acceptable quality. At the same time this task given the limitations of both budgetary funds and effective demand of the population, it cannot be solved simultaneously for the entire higher education system. It would be more practical and fair to legitimize the differentiation of universities, especially since in present moment the fact that they differ in the quality of education is known to everyone. It is the explicit recording of differences in quality educational program could become the basis for posing the problem of accessibility, since the question would no longer be raised about the accessibility of higher education in general, but in relation to a specific category of higher educational institutions. But to legitimize the differentiation of universities by prestige or the quality of the educational program (which, generally speaking, does not always coincide) means at the same time to legitimize differences in their budget financing. They - these differences - exist today, but they are informal (exclusive). Making them formal and clearly defined means, on the one hand, to consolidate some rules of the game, and on the other, to clearly spell out the responsibilities of those universities that find themselves at the top. In other words, formalization will affect the rights and responsibilities of the parties, but whether the parties are ready for this is a big question. The idea of ​​GIFO - state registered financial obligations - no matter how controversial it may be in itself, this problem allowed us to fix it extremely clearly: many prestigious universities, to which all applicants would come even with the highest category of GIFO - 1st category, would not receive those budget funds that they currently receive. And, besides, it could have turned out that they would have come with lower GIFO categories, which would have jeopardized the financial well-being of these universities.

At the same time, the lack of formalization of differences in the status of universities leads to the fact that teachers of even very prestigious educational institutions receive very small salaries, and tutoring for them becomes an almost obligatory means of remaining to teach at a university. Our calculations show that on average a tutor receives about 100-150 thousand rubles per year. or approximately 8-12 thousand rubles. per month. Considering that the budget salary of even a professor averages 5.5 thousand rubles, we find that the tutoring “add-on” provides an income for a university teacher slightly higher than the average salary in industry or the average salary in an industry such as non-ferrous metallurgy. Naturally, in this sector prices and incomes are extremely differentiated.

If you look at it from these positions Unified State Exam problem, then she will appear from a slightly different perspective. Already now, during the experiment on a unified exam, activities have begun