In the context of Russia entering the Bologna process and recognition of the principle of lifelong education, this article analyzes one of the possible ways of modernizing the vocational school – the expansion of the non-state (private) sector. Private investment in education in comparison with public funding ensures a higher adaptability of the learning process to the rapidly changing demands of the labor market. The share of private vocational education varies in different countries, depending on the level of economic development and cultural and historical traditions. The processes of privatization in education are characteristic of the initial and most dynamic stages of economic transformations, and so far as they transition to stable, sustainable modes, the pace of privatization decelerates, reaching a constant value. The increase in the share of financial assets of non-state origin in the system of Russian vocational education, training and retraining of workers is an objective necessity, which is determined by developing economic relations. Financial independence from the state creates conditions for the spread of new technologies to the sector of education as a whole, providing academic freedoms and university autonomy, which creates necessary conditions for innovations under the conditions of economic modernization. Over the past 10–15 years, several hundred educational institutions have appeared In Russia, which source of financing is solely non-governmental and private funds. At present, the growth in the number of private institutions has gradually stopped, and competition with public educational institutions has sharpened, there has been a slowdown in modernization of education and the growth of its capacity for innovation. On the other hand, the share of extrabudgetary funds is increasing in public education. In the broad sense of the term, privatization is generally accepted positively by the overwhelming majority of experts and, in part, by the population. Private educational institutions in the coming years are moving more and more into the sphere of informal and non-system education and will create an innovative educational environment there that will be more responsive to the changing demands of the labor market, gradually form a self-adjusting system of training, retraining and employment of the economically active population.

private higher education, vocational training, quality assurance, adult learners

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