Postdiploma Professional Education (A Sociological Study)

Overview & Synopsis

This article is a sociological study of postdiploma professional education. The authors state, that under the conditions of the mounting dynamics of social and economic processes, the only way that an individual can retain and increase the level of his professional and social competence and, consequently, his ability to compete in the domestic and international labor markets, is to take active part in various forms of postdiploma professional education. Postdiploma professional education can be defined as a systematically organized process, implemented over the entire span of adult life, for the purpose of enriching the knowledge, abilities, and skills of individuals with a basic professional education, a process designed to develop their personal economic culture and enhance their active social and professional involvement. In this article, the authors carried out a sociological (questionnaire) survey of college students who were acquiring a second higher education, enrolled in programs of higher professional education based on a profile secondary professional education, trainees in the President's Program for the Training of Management Cadres for Organizations of the National Economy of the Russian Federation, and also people participating in other programs for the retraining of specialists. The main purpose of the survey was to determine people's leading motives for continuing their professional education, the factors that have an influence on the formation thereof, and the characteristics of the educational needs of people of different ages who had different levels of education. And the results of the survey shows that the level of education that the subjects have achieved is a significant factor serving to form their need to continue their education, inasmuch as it influences the value aspects of their attitudes toward education and willingness to invest their resources in education. (Contains 2 tables and 1 note.)