Educational intentions of school graduates in high school education quality context

The question of the quality of education in secondary schools should be consideredin close connection with the educational orientations of students, as well as on the basis of the interaction between high school andsecondary school. Speaking about the "school - university" cluster it is necessary to distinguish at least two kinds of dependencies:objective and social-humanitarian. The first appears in real daily life and is conditioned by the educational system itself - university isdependent on school, while school does not depend on university (students go to universities after school). University seems to be thedepending and receiving party. But today university has the so-called insurance circumstances that contribute to the weakening of thedirect dependence of university from school and reduce its risks. We can identify three factors. First, it is the main thesis of modernity:in order to achieve success in life it is desirable (or required) to have higher education. Second, it is labour market demands. And,thirdly, it is the influence of the parents' family on educational intentions of adolescents. The influence of these factors can be traced bythe materials sociological of surveys conducted by Tomsk Regional Career Counselling Centre from 1996 to 2008. The monitoringsystem had a variety of tasks including description and identification of the dynamics of educational intentions of schoolchildren,prioritising selection of Tomsk higher schools, identification of factors influencing educational orientation of high school graduates. Themain conclusions are the following: 1. Adolescents' behaviour in the education market repeats, their educational intentions are mainlyrelated to higher education: more than a half of those surveyed dream about a particular institution of higher education. 2. Educationalstrategies of high school graduates as a model of the real and projective behaviour are influenced by several factors. The main ones areunderstanding the importance of education in general and higher education in particular, the demands of the labour market, as well asthe educational level of their parents. It must be assumed that these factors as insurance circumstances help minimize the dependence ofuniversity from high school.

Keywords

Authors

References