TRAINING OF FUTURE EDUCATORS AND PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN THE CONTEXT OF MCDONALDIZATION AND HUMANIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

The processes of McDonaldization and humanization of higher education have been analysed in the article. Their impact on the training of future educators and primary school teachers have been revealed.

The McDonaldization of higher education has been interpreted as a process that embodies the principles of McDonald’s activities (efficiency, calculability, predictability, control) in the multi-subject environment of educational institutions. It has been emphasised on its characteristic feature: the replacement of humane technology with inhumane technology. The humanization of higher education is the disclosure of the human-dimensional and human-oriented potential of lecturers and students.

Both positive and negative changes caused by McDonaldization in the field of professional education have been reflected. Among the positives are the following: an efficiently organized learning process, coverage of many learners with education, the possibility of academic mobility, facilitated by the standardization of professional training, and recognition of a diploma from one country in another. Negatives are identified as: insufficient attention to enriching the intellectual and spiritual world of the student; objectification of qualitative states by means of quantitative indicators; unification of the educational system, which loses the uniqueness of the higher educational institution.

The results of a questionnaire and survey of students have been presented.

Prospects for improving the training of future specialists in preschool and primary education in the context of humanization and reducing the negative impact of McDonaldization have been identified: achieving the uniqueness of educational institutions and avoiding templates, forming interpersonal relationships based on the principles of the pedagogy of the heart, providing greater academic freedom to research and teaching staff in choosing technologies and means of teaching, organizing control over the achievement of programme competencies and results by learners; focusing on the spiritual world of learners (students, preschoolers, primary school children), on the uniqueness of each person, developing innovative ways of cooperation, heart-to-heart communication in the educational space of higher educational institutions, preschools and primary schools.