UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: CONSERVATISM OR INNOVATION

Abstract

The use of the terms “conservative” and “innovative” in relation to education occurred relatively recently. In 1978, in a report to the Club of Rome, a group of scientists drew attention to the inadequacy of the principles of traditional education to the requirements of modern society for the individual, to the development of her cognitive abilities. In this report, innovative education was defined as “focused on creating a person’s readiness for rapidly advancing changes in society, readiness for an uncertain future through the development of creativity, diverse forms of thinking, and cooperation with others”. In fact, from that moment the mechanism of reforming the education system in the most developed countries of the world was launched. Our country joined this process later, nevertheless the education reform in modern Russia has been going on for more than 20 years, and often we follow the West in a situation where it is already beginning to be abandoned there. A little later, the reforms were renamed into the process of modernization of education, giving everything an almost eternal character, and in fact highlighting the uncertainty of this process, shifting the system of changes to a permanent state, which is very uncomfortable for those who study and for those who teach.