III Конференция стран Балтийского моря – XVII Конференция по чтению скандинавских стран «Making meaning - literacy in action» (Понимание смыслов – чтение и грамотность в действии)

Ekaterina S. Popova (Russia)

Institute of Sociology of RAS; Reading Association of Russia

katerinas.po@gmail.com

«Literacy in Action»: Lifelong Learning Engagement of Adults and PIAAC Results in Russia

Higher professional education and vocational training are of a big importance for national economy today because it provides reproduction and application of human capital in the forms of competences, qualifications, required knowledge and skills.

In accordance with the governmental statistics almost one third of population in Russia aged between 25 – 64 years old are engaged in lifelong learning in different forms: formal, informal and selfeducation. Unfortunately, it is one of the lowest percentages of such adults among European countries.

Despite these facts, we can observe several tendencies in that sphere. Data analysis makes one understand that participation in formal forms of lifelong learning is declining in the last decade. At the same time the number of adults taking part in self-educational activities is rapidly increasing. That is why the evaluation of different forms of human capital is becoming more important than ever.

Preliminary results of PIAAC survey show that adults from Russia are approximately at the mean OECD level in literacy and numeracy scores, but in comparison with the European countries there are much more adults in Russia who are below the 1stlevel in problem solving in technology-rich environments.

What is the correlation between achieved level of education and the results in competencies and skills assessment? What forms of formal and informal education appeared to be the most effective in the development of skills and competencies in modern competitive educational sphere in Russia? What are the perspectives for «literacy in action»?