CRUCIAL DIRECTIONS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONTINUING EDUCATION IN RUSSIA. INNOVATIVE ASPECTS

Continuing education is nowadays one of the most fundamental trends of the common post-industrial (informational) society. Many countries of the world have worked-out a huge list of methods and decisions that optimize the process of education regardless from the age and social position of the individual. Russian Federation is keeping its policy of modernization in all spheres: political, economical, social, military and industrial. The sphere of education is not an exception. Historically our country made first steps in this direction in the middle of the XX century when the Soviet Union tried to create some kind of "universal" specialist keen on any professional sphere. Despite the fact that the Soviet system of education was one of the most effective in the world and had really prepared millions of highly-qualified specialists in the second half of the XX century, it has been dismantled in the early 90-s without any adequate alternative. To the end of the first decade of the 2000-s Russian Federation has overcome the consequences of the crisis caused by the internal instability in the country of the 90-s and started the ambitious process of modernization including the adaptation of our system of education to the world standards. The task is both complicated and prospective and requires new principals of governmental participation in the process. First of all, some destructive features of the past crisis should be eliminated: cultural degradation, social stratification and lack of scientific strategy. The article focuses on crucial directions of solving the outlined problems and incorporating the Russian system of continuing education into the global one.