Abstract:

The article is devoted to the study of social problems of distance technologies introduction into the modern educational space of any Russian provincial city for the optimization measures development aimed at increasing the demand for distance education in the regions.

Distance education occupies a strong position in the modern system of education, organically complementing full-time and part-time learning, a variety of face-to-face training and courses. A new form of education in Russia is introduced with a significant lag behind developed countries. The improvement of the process of distance education is hampered by the problems of terminology, the creation of educational and material support, the training of teaching staff, financing, as well as copyrights to electronic educational resources. In addition, there are difficulties in overcoming consumer distrust of the distance education model as an alternative to traditional forms of education.

Institutional, structural-functional, subjectivist, and socio-cultural approaches are applied in the article. When collecting empirical data, mass survey methods and content analysis of Internet resources were used. A sociological study conducted with the help of a mass survey revealed the peculiarities of students' attitudes to the distance learning model. Thus, a regional feature of a provincial city in the central region of Russia is a decrease in the role of the motive of the remoteness of residence from the place of study when students choose a distance form of education. Content analysis of Internet resources of Russian provincial universities providing distance learning services aimed to determine how fully they reflect the necessary information for two categories of students. Firstly, those who have decided to receive distance education services and are looking for a suitable university. Secondly, those who have not decided yet on the form of education and are studying the advantages and disadvantages of each of them.

The article suggests several optimization measures aimed at increasing the demand for distance education in the regions of Russia.

Keywords:

Distance education, quality of distance education, reason for choosing distance education, demand for distance education.