First, the development of science and technology puts forward new requirements for education.
The rapid growth of knowledge is the most direct driving force for the development of continuing education. According to statistics, scientific knowledge doubled from 1750 to 1900, doubled in 50 years, doubled in 1950, doubled in 1960 and 10. In 1980s, the annual growth rate has reached 12.5%. Before the 20th century, people can enjoy the knowledge they have learned for life after receiving a higher education, and the content they have learned does not need to be updated. With the development of technology, the half-life of information literature is rapidly shortened, and the time between scientific discovery and application of this discovery is also rapidly shortened. The knowledge aging rate of engineers and technicians is at least 7% per year, and the half-life of electronic information science is 4 years. This urgently requires on-the-job professional and technical personnel to supplement new knowledge to meet the needs of competition. In other words, you must receive continuing education after graduating from college in order to have a place in the competition. After the Second World War, the whole world entered a new period of development, and the speed of social change and development accelerated. In particular, the challenges of new knowledge, new technology and new technology encountered by engineers and technicians in social and economic life are gradually increasing. Adults who have not received or only received traditional formal school education have encountered difficulties in facing the increasingly fast-paced social and economic life. Many engineers and technicians go back to school with problems in their work, which puts forward new and higher requirements for university education. People find that the knowledge they learned before graduating from colleges and universities can't keep pace with the times, so they spontaneously organize continuing education.
Due to the exponential growth of knowledge and information and the shortening of the half-life of information documents, the frequency of people's continuing education is accelerated, the number of times is increased, the cycle is shortened, and the absolute time of continuing education is rapidly increased, which is close to the time of receiving higher education. For example, in the United States, each employee studies for an average of two weeks a year. Based on 35 years of work, the average time for each employee to receive continuing education is 70 weeks, which is close to the study time of 80 weeks in full-time two-year colleges in China. With the development of knowledge economy, the time for everyone to receive continuing education will increase further every year. People can't learn once and for all, but must study for life in order to adapt to the constant changes and accelerated development of modern science and technology.
Second, the application of science and technology has expanded the object of continuing education.
With the wide application of science and technology, the objects of continuing education are gradually expanding: ordinary people should learn, scientific and technical personnel and managers should learn more, and even excellent talents should learn. With the development of knowledge economy, everyone who enters the society, no matter what occupation he is engaged in or what education he has received before, is faced with the problem of updating and supplementing knowledge, and must receive continuing education according to his own needs to adapt to the development of society, economy and science and technology. Bell Laboratories, the world's largest research institution of electronic communication technology, still regards the continuing education of scientific and technological personnel as the basis for completing the technological revolution, although it has a large number of doctors and masters.
If people don't receive continuing education and learn the latest science and management technology, they will be eliminated by society. The labor market of knowledge-based economy favors those scientific and technical personnel and skilled workers who have the comprehensive ability to master professional knowledge, and the educated and technically trained labor force is highly valued, while unskilled workers will be left out in the cold. With the development of knowledge economy, the demand for scientific and technical personnel and highly skilled workers in the labor market will increase day by day. Continuing education has become an inherent need for the survival and development of enterprises and individuals. According to statistics, since 1950, the number of technicians in the United States has tripled, reaching 20 million in 1994, which is three times the growth rate of the total labor force. All kinds of technicians have become the largest occupation in the United States. The way for these technicians to keep up with the rapid changes in science and technology is to continuously receive on-the-job training and continuing education.
Third, the demand for scientific and technological talents has increased investment in continuing education.
With the increase of the frequency and frequency of continuing education, the funds for continuing education have also increased rapidly. The existence of excess profits in high-tech industries attracts investment to high-tech industries and information services, and the demand for people with advanced scientific and technological knowledge, one of the production factors of high-tech industries, increases sharply. Western developed countries attach great importance to the development of continuing education. In the United States, for example, the annual funding for continuing education is equivalent to that for general higher education. 1970,13 of the top 500 enterprises in American Happiness magazine has disappeared, and only 10% of American high-tech industries can live for five years. The situation in other countries is similar. Why? MIT uses system dynamics analysis to propose that enterprises must become "learning organizations" in order to gain advantages in future competition. The development of science and technology requires society to develop into a learning society, enterprises to develop into learning enterprises, and individuals to receive lifelong education, the core of which is continuing education.
The increasing demand for knowledge-based talents makes the investment of the state, enterprises and individuals in continuing education increase rapidly, which provides economic guarantee for the development of continuing education. In order to meet the challenge of knowledge economy, all countries, especially developed countries, have increased their investment in science, technology and education. In the countries of the Organization for International Economic Cooperation and Development, the funds for staff training are also increasing substantially. For example, the proportion of training funds in Germany and Austria has reached 2.5% of GDP. The annual expenditure of American enterprises on education and training is close to the total expenditure of American four-year universities. During the period of 1995, American enterprises spent $52.2 billion on continuing education and training and trained 49.6 million employees. The per capita training fee is about 1050 USD, and it was about $56 billion during 1996. The average annual cost of continuing education for each employee is 2000 yuan, and there is a trend of increasing at the rate of 5.5% per year.
Fourthly, the rapid updating of knowledge enhances the attributes of lifelong education.
Due to the high accumulation of knowledge, it is impossible and unnecessary for pre-service education to master all the knowledge of this major. Therefore, it is only an education that requires students to master basic principles and train students' way of thinking, and the task of broadening knowledge and deepening knowledge will be completed by continuing education. Faced with the accelerated development of science and technology and the accelerated cycle of knowledge renewal, people must constantly speed up the frequency of continuing education and increase the number of continuing education. They must never study once and for all, but should receive lifelong education.
The book Learning: Inner Treasure published by UNESCO 1996 clearly points out: "The concept of lifelong education is a key for mankind to enter the 2 1 century." Therefore, it can be said that the future society must be a lifelong learning society. The importance of basic education and university education has been generally recognized, so the focus of lifelong education should be continuing education. Although continuing education is a part of lifelong education, it takes about 30 to 50 years for professional and technical managers from work to retirement, which runs through their career and accounts for about half of their life. Throughout one's life, one's education in ordinary schools is short-lived, while continuing education is long-term, and continuing education will accompany one for most of his life. It goes without saying that the proportion of people receiving continuing education in the lifelong education system is so high that without continuing education, lifelong education will lose its continuity and become an empty talk.
Fifth, the use of modern technology makes the means of continuing education diversified.
The development of science and technology has created conditions for the modernization of continuing education teaching methods. Television, video, VCD teaching discs and computer-aided teaching software are widely used in teaching. A revolutionary achievement brought by information technology in the field of education is network education. The "campus world" on the computer network enables people to face the best teachers in the world and receive all kinds of lively education and training without leaving home. Network education will completely change the current teaching mode, and students can call out what they want to learn from the network at any time. Teachers have changed from imparting knowledge to guiding students' learning, and students have changed from passive lectures to active learning according to their own needs. Online education can not only save time and cost, but also improve the efficiency of training and teaching. The input and output of education can no longer be calculated by traditional formulas, and the maximum benefit can be obtained with less input.
Six, the development trend of industrialization makes the benefits of continuing education increase.
Continuing education pays attention to guiding students to develop projects and training skills to predict the future, and to combining innovative thinking with production practice, which will create huge economic benefits. Continuing education is no longer a "pure consumer undertaking", and the production of talents and knowledge will become a common phenomenon as the production of commodities. Countries such as the United States, Britain and Australia. The education export industry has been developed. Continuing education will have the same input-output relationship as ordinary industries. Because education has two characteristics of professionalism and practicality, it mainly focuses on the development and strengthening of scholars' professional skills and the cultivation of practical talents, which can bring obvious economic benefits to enterprises and individuals and will become one of the most efficient investment methods.
Compared with academic education, the training cycle of continuing education is short. Professionals in a certain field needed by society can be trained in a short time through continuing education, so continuing education is not a long-term talent training like academic education, and the talents trained through continuing education can be quickly used in production practice. Continuing education, with its flexible and diverse forms of running schools, also meets the needs of fast-paced and efficient study and work in modern society. As the carrier of knowledge, human capital plays an important role in economic growth. Learning will be the key to maintain long-term economic growth, and cultivating high-quality human resources will be the main driving force and source of economic growth in 2 1 century.
Authors: Fourth Military Medical University
[Editor: Wang Hongjun]