Education and Knowledge: The Sustainable Development Value

Context

Larisa Yu. Logunova

, Ekaterina A. Mazhenina

and Antonina N. Utkina

Kemerovo State University, Kemerovo, Russia

Belovsky Institute (branch), Kemerovo State University, Belovo, Russia

Keywords: Value of Knowledge, Education, Social Competence, Competence Approach.

Abstract: The article considers the Russian education system problems discussion. The authors support the leading

scientists assessment about the domestic education reforms failure. The contradictions between the value

meanings of knowledge and education are revealed, and their interdependence is shown. The authors point

out such a display of these contradictions as the knowledge approach displacement by the competence

approach. It leads to the loss of the conceptual idea of the education institute work. The result of the

contradictions is the education development two parallel vectors formation, practically unrelated in semantic

and ideological aspects, as well as the process of distancing the teaching staff from the managerial elite in

universities. The solution to the problem of the education institute sustainable development is seen in the

knowledge value recovery. And this becomes possible with the comeback to the status order education system,

the economocentrism rejection, the cultural centrism principles preservation.

1 INTRODUCTION

A person in the modern world is forced to constantly

adapt to galloping changes. Education is one of the

"adapters" that perform an instrumental role. Its result

is the acquisition of an "educated person" status. This

person is able to produce information and use it.

Education develops professionally useful skills,

provides access to knowledge acquisition. However,

the knowledge value meanings substitution for the

education value leads to the dominance of the

instrumental over the terminal.

The social order focuses education on the

formation of a citizen who has the openness to

innovation qualities, creativity, who is able to work

with information, make independent decisions. One

would welcome the modernizational ideas and

current innovations dynamism, if this process did not

"jump" the traditional meanings and education values

at a high speed. The traditions of knowledge transfer

from teacher to student were filled with the trade

meanings.

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8417-913X

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7403-5677

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9025-3065

2 METHODOLOGY AND

METHODS

Russian scientists have launched a heated discussion

about the education problems. The problem of higher

school management excessive centralization is

sounded (Diev, 2020; Kurlenya, 2020; Orekhovsky

and Razumov, 2020). Reforms and bureaucratic

pressure have led to a systemic crisis in education, the

comprehension is required (Rozov, 2020;

Toshchenko, 2020; Illarionov, 2020). Professorship

calls for the "truth value potential" return and the

meaning of obtaining knowledge in the educational

process. Ostrovsky, P. A., Razumov, V. I., complain

about the "carnivalization" that has captured the

teaching community. The criteria for publication

activity make the university faculty lose the research

work logic: "... the Bakhtin carnival has completely

captured science. Now, it doesn't matter what you

write, it matters how much you write and where you

publish". Attention is drawn to the relevance of the

transition to a university management subsidiary

578

Logunova, L., Mazhenina, E. and Utkina, A.

Education and Knowledge: The Sustainable Development Value Context.

DOI: 10.5220/0010594205780583

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 578-583

ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7

model, which involves increasing the role of the

professional community in making managerial

decisions, "faculty autonomy" (Rozov, 2020). There

is a sharp warning that the administrative and

bureaucratic style of higher education management

leads to destructive reforms.

The modern education paradigm can be defined as

the "educational services" construction mainstream.

The reform theorists see a person in the categories of

controllability. From the education process, the

meanings of love, joy, and the knowledge value bases

are emasculated. It "anchores" the reforms

acceleration in the mobility era. At the same time, the

emphasis is made on standardization and unification,

on "second wave" strongholds (O. Toffler), that

restrain the culture developing processes of obtaining

knowledge, but make the participants in this process

manageable. We will add bureaucrats' sporadically

emerging ideas, e.g. "optimization", the "supporting

universities", "universities with a special status",

"rating educational institutions", "project training"

creation. Today, the knowledge cultivating problem

can be defined as follows: the actualization of the

search for mechanisms to support true knowledge, the

return of knowledge value in the obtaining education

process.

3 RESEARCH RESULTS

The acquiring knowledge process, anchored by

teacher-student interactions thousands years practice,

has turned into managerialism experiments. The

subject of interactions is the knowledge transfer as a

true value. It has been replaced by the official's opinion

authority value on the education process quality. The

result of this substitution was the management

dictatorship, the design of education as a service, the

quantitative "performance indicators" introduction for

rating, the competition imposition (Boyadzhieva ed.,

2019). The obvious beneficiary of such an educational

policy was an elite universities group at the top of the

industry pyramid. But the breakthrough results,

according to Zborovsky, G.E., neither in the education

quality nor in its institutional functioning has occurred

(Zborovsky, 2011). Instrumental characteristics of

knowledge possession began to prevail. The

"knowledge as the embodiment of the Truth itself"

value (Pruzhinin, 2014) is practically opposed to the

education prestige and the university status (rating) in

which the education was received.

Knowledge gives meaning to education, has a

value primacy. Knowledge, embodied in a rational,

sensual or intuitive form, gives a person power over

internal and external nature, it can be attributed to the

highest and the most complex values shared by

humanity (Pruzhinin, 2014). Since the time of

Socrates, education has been seen as a means of

introducing people to fundamental knowledge and

ideals. Enlightened people carried out the

transmitting knowledge to descendants mission. In

these traditions, E. Durkheim defined the function of

education. It is to bring the humanism seeds in people

souls. Every child is a person, programmed by

education to achieve individual autonomy in society

(Durkheim, 2007). Such autonomy implies the

individual self-sufficiency, situationality, social and

cultural competence. The task of education is to

provide a person with knowledge that meets such

needs. According to Aristotle, the desire for

knowledge is inherent in the very people's nature.

This determined the education institute creation, in

which Knowledge was established as the value core.

But today, the education process is becoming more

and more controversial. Knowledge is practically

opposed to the education process. This reveals itself

in the following:

3.1 Substitution of Competence with

Jurisdiction

The process of splitting the knowledge integrity into

independent and serving is obvious. The first is true

and irrelevant. It belongs to all people, it is designed

to help an individual to integrate into the world, to

learn themselves. This knowledge is formed into a

person's social competence, in the baggage of truths

necessary for life. Social competence is converted

into social capital, denoting the willingness and

courage to make vital decisions and take

responsibility for these decisions.

Competencies contain the knowledge necessary

for a specialist to solve professional problems and a

narrow range of issues to be solved. This is up-to-date

knowledge that helps a person adapt to changing

situations. As long as they are irrespective, they fill

the volume of knowledge about life. If they are turned

into a management tool and if they attribute

significance and value meanings to this knowledge

that do not correspond to their meaning and scope,

then the knowledge takes an "untrue" form.

Competence are the characteristics of relevant

knowledge. The former are based on enduring values,

participate in the mechanism of social inheritance and

knowledge reproduction. Competencies are the

knowledge that helps people work in organizations.

The concept of "competence" definitions variety

unites one thing, we are not talking about

Education and Knowledge: The Sustainable Development Value Context

579

fundamental knowledge, but about an accumulated

behavioral reactions system. The lack of fundamental

knowledge destroys the education potential.

Professionalism and competence outside the

knowledge component and outside the cultural

context creates a fiction in the higher education

practice (Tuluzakova, 2018). But can competencies

meet the younger generation vital needs? Today,

students are interested in the problem of longevity,

old age, maintaining health, finding happiness,

restoring human abilities lost as a result of injuries,

raising children, finding new relevant professions.

These problems go beyond the heuristic competence

boundaries.

3.2 The Contradiction between the

Skills Benefits and the Knowledge

Fundamental Nature

Today, the priority in the knowledge transfer is the

skills and abilities formation. Knowledge in programs

can not be prescribed. Knowledge is transmitted, not

prescribed. The expediency question on the

educational programs structures and elements for all

generations becomes relevant. The training programs

availability with all the required competencies is easy

to control. It is postulated that the prescribed

competencies somehow improve the quality of

training, help students master disciplines. But a

periodic survey of students in the classrooms revealed

that students do not even read the pages with

competencies in the programs.

The value of knowledge as the educational

process meaning defenders are considered

conservatives who hinder the system development.

Education becomes an arena of struggle between

"conservatives" and "reformers". The former

associate education with fundamentals, the latter

associate education with efficiency and usefulness.

This education confrontation and the transformation

from the sphere of culture and enlightenment into the

sphere of services exacerbates the society

fundamental institution crisis.

The benefits language transform education into a

trade in the skills needed for production. This is the

paradox of modern education: knowledge belongs to

culture, but it is evaluated by economists. Knowledge

is priceless, but the system of "effective contracts"

and "indicators" captures the exact knowledge cost.

The new era requires a person not have narrow

professional skills and relevant competencies. A

universal specialist preparation becomes relevant.

This means the need to provide students with social

technologies for mastering new knowledge,

technologies for mastering social competence.

Today, it is reasonable not just to teach a student

professional competencies, but to orient a person to

the social change rapid processes, to offer knowledge

that will help to do everything that life will lead to.

To be socially competent means, among other things,

to be able to recognize manipulations and defend

against them, to show vital resistance to adverse

influences of all kinds. This can be done by a new

subject of history, i.e. a "critically thinking person"

(Lavrov, P. L.), "the enlightened public" (Y.

Habermas). Thise subjects have a fundamental

knowledge about the world, they are socially

competent. Skills and competencies are secondary,

they are a side product of gaining knowledge.

The highest ethical maxim of the knowledge

possession is social responsibility to humanity. For

the skills possession, such an ethical component is

excessive. Knowledge is a threat to dictators and

totalitarian regimes. Knowledge holders are difficult

to manage, and their minds are difficult to

manipulate.

3.3 Contradictions between

Economocentrism and Classical

"Humanistic Idealism"

In the education methodology, it is a society and its

culture state projection (Khagurov, 2011). At the

beginning of the XXI century, the increase in mass

demand for higher education was accompanied by a

reduction in funding and the market mechanisms

introduction to the education system management. As

a result, the education has gradually transformed from

a fundamental knowledge sanctuary to an enterprise

offering effective products (Pokrovsky, 2005). This

gave an incentive to improve the education quality,

but competition led to the selection of educational

institutions, curricula and teachers. The education has

been rethought, it has become a high-quality service

provided on a competitive basis, a functional

appendage that serves business.

Assuming that education moves from the space of

culture to the market position, society agrees to serve

the market, losing the ability to verbalize its needs for

knowledge. Universities and schools are no longer

territories for storing and transferring knowledge to

new generations, but business structures. There is a

mix of the knowledge "value" and "price" concepts.

Knowledge is a product prepared by the subject for

sale, it is incompatible with the meanings of

knowledge as the humanity culture value basis.

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580

Humanity does not trade knowledge. Only a

person can trade knowledge. But there is a contact

point, knowledge is the property of a possessor,

regardless of whether they were bought or acquired

as a result of self-realization. This simplifies the

logical operation a concept substituting. If there is a

knowledge owner, then this owner is not necessarily

their carrier. Just a buyer (Logunova and Utkina,

2019).

Education is transformed from an acquiring

knowledge socio-cultural process into a service, into an

object of purchase and sale in a competitive market.

This is no longer a socially significant benefit, which

is guaranteed by the state to each of its citizens on the

principles of equality, but a social capital obtaining

instrument. The terminal meaning of knowledge as a

value is being lost. Lao She condemned the verdict on

commercialization, optimization, and

bureaucratization processes that have taken the place

of our well-formed education system integrating core:

"... what caused our education system collapse?... I

think that the loss of humanity, when the sciences

were needed for profit, and not for the truths

cognition that can be passed on to descendants" (Lao,

2020).

The contrast in the assessments of Russian

education is baffling, the "educational system" insists

on its effectiveness, while education consumers,

employers, politicians and intellectuals are at the

same time warning more and more loudly about the

all-consuming crisis of our education and the

complete failure of its permanent post-Soviet

reforms. Ural sociologists conducted a study in 2017

on the engineering personnel professional

socialization problems in the Ural region. Managers

of enterprises (employers, 150 people) were

interviewed. The results of the questionnaire survey

showed "young people irresponsible attitude in

obtaining professional education". 52% of employers

believe that students do not think about their

competitiveness, paid studying "discourages" young

people, "dictates teachers to treat negligent students

indulgently, so as not to lose income" (46%). The

university administration demonstrates low demands

on students (28%). According to employers, young

people "succumb to the general mood that is to learn

without "strain" (30%), "they are not accustomed to

work and difficulties" (29%) (Pavlova, Pavlov,

Bondareva and Saraykin, 2019).

This education "product" negative assessment

practically confirms the hypothesis that the

knowledge acquisition has turned into a carnival

world inside out. Kurlenya, K. M., notes that in the

educational process, seriousness is replaced by a

farce, pedagogical work genuine professionalism and

students dedication degenerate into buying and

selling. Here, "some pretend to teach, while others

pretend to learn something". At the same time, most

of the participants in the process are sincere in their

mutual cynicism and have no illusions about the

results of their own activities" (Kurlenya, 2020).

4 THE DISCUSSION OF THE

RESULTS

Solving the education institute sustainable

development problem in restoring the value of

knowledge means:

4.1 The Status Order Returning

Mixing the "sociality types" and the social institutions

functions is dangerous. Each institution corresponds

to specific functions and types of sociality, equipped

with cultural attributes, values, and institutional

"subsystems for maintaining a pattern" of behavior

(Parsons, 2018; Parsons, 2008). A socially competent

person is one who accurately recognizes distinctive

cultural symbols, correlates own actions with social

norms and rules of behavior within the social statuses

and sociality types framework. This is the meaning of

the social order. To mix market with school is to

undermine the order foundations. Such a mixing

reverses the fundamental foundations of the "student"

and "teacher" statuses existence. Today, they express

the relationship of "seller" and "buyer" with the

tendency to turn into "customer" and "service

personnel". This contradicts the social experience

inheritance process meaning, which determines the

service position to the student, and protection position

to the teacher. These positions are filled with the

relationship of the teacher's love for his students, the

students' devotion to their teachers (Donskikh and

Logunova, 2019).

The statuses dyad interaction is traditional: the

student serves the teacher, the teacher serves

Knowledge and the teacher is responsible for the truth

of the knowledge that he or she offers to the student.

The teacher does not sell knowledge and does not

serve the student. Otherwise, the teacher's status takes

on the meaning of a merchant asking the buyer to buy

a product (pass the test work). The "teacher" social

status bearer can assume the role of a quasi-parent

who takes care of the student. But the role of a

knowledge quasi-merchant imposed on him or her

looks ridiculous. The knowledge possession cannot

Education and Knowledge: The Sustainable Development Value Context

581

be described in terms of richness. Knowledge is the

self-awareness, the joy associated with it. Knowledge

devoid of love and joy is perverted knowledge.

4.2 Economocentrism Rejection

Economocentrism kills the personal relationship

between the teacher and the student, reducing

everything to one plane – money. The market laws

determine the procedure for providing educational

services, the interaction format between the seller and

the buyer. The process of transferring knowledge and

experience takes on the trade transaction features.

With capitalization (the introduction of "effective

contracts", the system of "indicators", the dependence

of the teacher's work on "attracted funds"), education

becomes an instrument of competition for resources.

The dominant elites, who have exceptional

opportunities for the grants distribution, the

qualifications establishment in the form of formal

"indicators", have the right to social lawlessness, i.e.

a sharp change in the "game rules". Additional

restrictions and conditions for entering communities

are being introduced, and the laws on the right to

dominate are being changed. If yesterday there were

requirements for a certain number of articles for the

Higher Attestation Commission to occupy a ranking

position, and applicants learned how to fulfill them,

today they need mandatory publications in foreign

journals, tomorrow they will need games with

"quartiles". The goal improving postulation personnel

structure looks unconvincing. The enlightened public

clearly sees the latent (real!) goal, that is to maintain

the dominant positions of power in the science and

education fields, which are not related to the scientific

creativity processes and the knowledge translation.

And if society takes this position, then education and

enlightenment will lose their essence, that is the

orientation to the person. Their attention shifts to the

consumer. Human-centricity moves from the

semantic value core of the educational process to the

periphery, its place is taken by meanings related to

market relations.

Value is higher than price in both semantic and

energetic contexts. Knowledge is higher than

"competencies", "skills", which are determined by the

person experience boundaries. Knowledge is the

value of a culture that transcends the experience of

one person or of the whole community. An attack on

spiritual (sacred) structures leads to technological

catastrophes, where an error in calculations,

connivance and irresponsibility are the result of the

teaching order and duty traditions loss, which are

brought up by the school, but do not take into account

the market.

The terminal value of knowledge lies in its

unappreciated value, or rather, in the meaninglessness

of its evaluation. One who knows this truth never tries

to estimate knowledge or the amount of knowledge.

The terminal characteristic meaning is that

knowledge is in itself, it is self-sufficient. Knowledge

is involved in the processes of self-awareness, self-

realization, self-esteem. It makes no sense in

assigning points to such processes.

The focus on competence is dangerous because of

the well-trained mediocre people dominance. But

today there is an increasing need for socially

competent people who are able to distinguish high-

quality cultural products in a broad sense from

handicrafts. The reflection and social competence

training cannot be reduced to lectures given by

employers, "practitioners", and masters from the

capitals in a remote format. It is necessary to cultivate

the traditions, principles and spirit of the academic

environment. Without this environment, the

intellectuals new generations education is difficult.

4.3 Trust to Culture

Science and education are the elements of the society

culture. They include, but are not defined by,

economic relations. The self-regulation socio-cultural

mechanism, which "adjusts" the culture with the help

of norms, moral principles, and value choices, is laid

at the educational processes foundation. Socio-

cultural processes are self-sufficient, controlled by

the culture itself, do not need the organizational

structures subjects. It is impossible to control the

educational process value nerve (service, love,

charity, obedience).

5 CONCLUSIONS

The authors understand that discussions in the

academic environment will not stop further

"carnivalization". But the teaching staff distancing

process from the liberal elite in the education system,

establishing partnerships with colleagues and like-

minded people, and creating solidarity structures is

obvious. The understanding the preserving true

knowledge mission priority for the young people

education is strengthened. Two parallel vectors of

education development are formed, which are

practically unrelated in semantic and ideological

aspects. The first is related to the search for the truth

and serving it, helping to access it. The second is with

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582

the transformation of the education system "into a

kind of ersatz, producing manipulative individuals"

(Kurlenya, 2020).

Thus, the result of education is the knowledge

birth and multiplication, the ideas, theories, concepts,

technologies circulation, thanks to which the

existence of the society culture is possible.

Knowledge is the foundation for the skills and

abilities formation. A school in a broad sense is a

territory of service to Truth, Kindness, Beauty, Love

and Hope, not a marketplace. Knowledge is a value

that has no monetary equivalent, regardless of its

terminal or instrumental characteristics. The

rationalization of educational structures ends at the

humanization border.

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