CONTINUITY OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AS AN INNOVATIVE CHALLENGE IN THE CONDITIONS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION AND DIGITALIZATION

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issue of continuity of vocational education in the conditions of European integration and digitalization. The purpose of research is analysis of strategic documents and accumulated better practices of the EU countries for identifying the main directions of development of the continuous education in Ukraine in the conditions of European integration and digitalization. Based on the analysis of the strategic documents of the European Union, it has been found that high-quality educational content (in terms of content and form of execution) with the possibility of interactive participation and mentoring is in demand today. Distance education has significant advantages for the implementation of continuous education that is oriented to an unlimited number of students with the possibility of obtaining knowledge at a convenient time, the possibility of choosing a convenient (optimal) learning pace. That variant of obtaining education is available for people of different training levels, age, social position and health. It has been summed up that the distance format is largely consistent with the principles of the concept of continuous education, and meet the dynamically changing needs of a modern person in applied knowledge. The general specific of the examined formats is strengthening the components of the informal nature of education, individualization (customization) of educational practices and orientation to the subjective needs of the personality. It has been determined that the key direction of development of the educational environment in the conditions of European integration and digitalization are distance education; gamification of education and using cloud technologies; implementation of augmented reality solutions and visualization technologies; development of social networks in education; development of mass opened online courses. It has been generalized that the following measures will facilitate the continuity of vocational education in the conditions of European integration and digitalization: educational trips, exchange of delegations; education in the format of "summer" and "winter" schools with "deep immersion", organization and conduction of author’s master classes, use of project technologies and techniques of game technology; increasing the share of distance learning to 50% of the total number of courses, using interactive forms (webinars, quizzes, virtual traineeships, etc.) with the involvement of representatives of educational organizations of the European Union.