A Promising Model of Postgraduate Teacher Education: Teacher Professional Development in Russia

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of teaching careers in Russia. It is shown how ideas and main components of the teaching profession were changed from the Soviet period to the Post-Soviet period and what are the requirements nowadays. The digitalisation of education and ICT use of teachers under the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic is examined separately. This chapter shows that while the standards emphasize the active use of digitally assisted teaching techniques as a key component in nurturing adequate ICT literacy and skills in students at various training levels, the existing institutional landscape is often unresponsive or literally resistant to this important imperative. Other topics under spotlight here are teacher qualification, evaluation, and compensation systems. New models of job ranks imply particular positions of the teaching career ladder linked to the nature and scope of one’s functions in designing, managing, and delivering school curricula and administrative activities. Against this background, the chapter ends with a draft of Continuing Professional Teacher Development program (CPTD). This program was designed to ensure alignment between modern socio-educational requirements and teachers needs and requests in seeking to fulfill their individual career and life goals.

This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation [19-78-10127].