Challenges and Prospects of Education in the Postindustrial Information Society

Abstract

This article briefly discusses the features of the education system in the former Soviet Union, known to rely on the concept of mass training personnel in exact and natural sciences, for them to be capable of generating new fundamental and applied knowledge and technologies for the development of strategic industries. As a result of the liberal market reforms in 1990–1992, the education system in Russia switched towards training users, or consumers, of the technologies and products that already exist in global markets. The modernization of the education system in the new millennium is completing the agenda put forward in the 1990s. The educational reforms of recent years are moving towards a permanent end to the economy of industrial production of complex engineering systems in favor of a service economy, which does not create material wealth. The obvious consequence of this agenda is the collapse of the education system inherited from the former Soviet Union and the complete loss of hope for restoring economically and socially relevant high-tech industries.