Shargun T. Development of Theoretical and Methodological Principles of Training of the Future Specialists of Railway Transport in Ukraine (the XIX – Beginning of the XX Century)

In the dissertation the general and comparative analysis of training of the future specialists of railway transport in the XIX – beginning of the XX century in the Dnieper and Western Ukraine has been conducted. Significant differences have been found in the training system of the future specialists of the railway transport in the investigated period. In tsarist Russia, thanks to the branch subordination to the Ministry of Transport, simultaneously with the state education system, the network of departmental educational institutions with the graded system of training has been created. In western Ukraine during the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Polish period, the training of the future specialists of the railway transport has been carried out at the separate faculty of engineering «Caesar -Royal Polytechnic School in Lviv» (1877–1921). It has been established that, in spite of differences in the general system of preparation of the future specialists of the railway transport, there was much in common in the organization of the educational process in the above mentioned technical institutions of higher education. 1) At the beginning of the twentieth century there were tendencies towards the formation of the single educational space not only within individual states, but practically throughout the whole of Europe: a) curricula and programs, the system for assessing and controlling the success of students’ knowledge were coordinated with the technical higher education institutions at the state levels of compliance with European educational standards; b) students had the opportunity to practice and receive higher education abroad; c) excursions with scientific and educational purposes were organized for the state budget funds in the country and abroad. 2) Technical institutions of higher education have rapidly acquired the value of scientific centres. 3) There was humanization of the educational process in technical higher education institutions at that time. 4) Considerable attention was paid to the education and culture of students. The author’s classification of historical sources concerning the training of the future specialists of the railway profile has been developed and specified on individual examples. A double periodization has proposed for the development of training of the future railway specialists XIX – beginning of the XX centuries on the basis of certain conceptual aspects: external (integral for the description of the general historical epoch in which the studied pedagogical phenomenon develops) and internal (specific for the chronological boundaries of the period under study). The methodological principles and the general scientific approaches of the research, their evolution and dominance at certain historical stages in preparation of the future specialists of the railway transport have been grounded in the research: synergetic, acmeological, competence, activity, humanistic and culturological, axiological, paradigm and integrative approaches. The possibilities of application of methods of training of the future specialists of railway transport in their historical development have been revealed. It is shown that the improvement of the forms and methods of training of the future engineers for the railway industry in Ukraine in the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries was based on the achievements of the pedagogy of the professional school of that time and the requirements of the railway industry: optimization of the length of the educational process in higher education institutions; alternative departmental degree system of training; introduction of the subject system of training; optimization of time allocation of classes; order of getting marks for determining the grade upon completion of the higher education institution; differentiated approach to providing educational-qualification levels, ranks, classes; organic inclusion into the educational process of the system of production practice, etc. It is shown that in training of the future specialists of railway transport during the research period various concepts of training have been realized, which are considered in meta-classification of traditional, pedocentric and subject-subject concepts. Each of them had its advantages and disadvantages. It is revealed that during the investigated period the interdependence and mutual influence of the events in the railway industry and in the training of the future specialists of railway transport have been observed: the branch subordination of educational institutions to the Ministry of Communications in the Russian Empire; the combination of teaching by the professors at the institute with practical work at the positions in the industry; development of scientific and technical projects on railway transport issues in higher education institutions in parallel with the educational process of personnel training for the industry; provision of personnel potential of the railway industry and educational in