THE ROLE OF TRAINING MATERIALS IN IMPROVING THE QUALITY OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING: PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE AND CURRENT STATE

Abstract

Vocational education and training (VET) is an integral part of the Ukrainian educational system and an important component of the country�s reconstruction both now and in the long term, due to the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Given this, VET institutions in Ukraine should adapt to the unfavourable conditions of the ongoing russian-Ukrainian war and train qualified workers in accordance with the requirements of the current labor market. As a result of the martial law in Ukraine, starting on February 24, 2022, VET institutions subsequently switched to distance learning, and then, depending on the security situation in the certain region, provide educational services in three different formats (full-time, distance and mixed). By that time, Ukrainian students already had experienced distance learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the introduction of quarantine measures, so this was not a new challenge for most participants in the educational process. However, other problems that had existed in providing quality VET for some time before have crystallized. It is about the proper methodological support of the educational process, one of the main components of which is the availability of the required educational materials. The working hypothesis of this article is that one of the key factors influencing the provision of quality educational services in the VET system is the availability and accessibility of training materials (textbooks), which should be up-to-date, reflect the current needs of society and take into account the needs of the business sector. To test this hypothesis, the article analyzes in detail the survey covering 25 Regional Educational and Methodological Centers of Vocational Education in Ukraine, which was conducted by the authors in 2020. The study found, among other things, that it was an imbalance between the available number of textbooks and the real need for quality educational literature in a number of professions; nearly 50% of vocational training textbooks were outdated and did not reflect trends and changes in the relevant sectors; some textbooks were published in russian in the Soviet era etc. However, in recent years, the situation with the provision of materials for VET education and its accessibility has improved significantly, and today the vast majority of educational materials are available online and are concentrated on several electronic platforms. In order to facilitate and increase the efficiency of further use of educational literature, the authors propose to create a unified e-platform for VET, which will host training materials (textbooks) not only in Ukrainian, but also English-language resources that have proven to be of high quality, in particular, from EU countries.