Continuous education and population ageing

• Viktor Ya. Gel`man

Abstract

Changes in the demographic situation associated with an increase in the proportion of older people in society have led to the fact that many characteristics of the social development of society have become largely determined by the corresponding indicators of the social group of the elderly. In particular, in the context of continuous education paradigm, the problem of training for older students arises. There is a lack of development of a scientifically based system for education of this group of people. The aims of this publication were to study impact of changes in the age structure of the population on vocational education of adults, to identify trends and problems in development of older people education and to develop clinical practice guidelines (as exemplified by training medical professionals in information technologies). In the article official statistics, data from scientific publications, expert assessments and generalized practical experience are used and analyzed. A brief analysis of the population structure and age distribution of elderly people is carried out. The trends of changes in population composition and, accordingly, in contingent of adult professional development are shown. The growing share of older students leads to necessity to take into account peculiarities of their education and corresponding adjustment of the education system. Specific features of elderly and approaches to their education are considered. A two-step methodology for competencies formation in a new field for students (as exemplified by training medical professionals in information technologies) is proposed. According to the proposed method, at the first stage elderly student learns how to work with study guide and strictly perform the proposed tasks with step-by-step instructions, and at the second stage he learns how to perform exercises by analogy with typical example of finding necessary solutions for existing differences. Some practical ways of communication with elderly students are also recommended. Specificity of School Organization and Management is considered. The article contains a number of specific proposals that relate to education of older persons. It is noted that for a full-fledged education it is necessary to develop special training packages that take into account the particularities of older persons.

Keywords:continuous education, population ageing, elderly age, education, educational process, information technologies

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