Preservation of the discipline "Safety" by means of changing curricula

Abstract

During the past five years the regulatory and legal framework of education in Ukraine has been changing significantly. Especially important changes in the content and organization of education were stipulated by the law on “Higher Education” and the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine “List of Specialties” (correspondingly of 2014 and 2015 years of enactment). The introduction of the European credit transfer system in education has changed the structure of curricula and the list of subjects in each block radically. There have been analyzed the content of curricula for specialties of engineering field for the last 50-60 years. The work programs on the content of sections on academic disciplines of the block “Human Safety” have been reviewed. Findings. On the results of the work there were made certain conclusions concerning the current trends of development and some changes in programs and curriculum for training specialists. In addition, the total number of disciplines on each specialty has almost doubled at reducing the amount of hours on each of them by a third. There were found some (25-30%) duplications of separate topics in standard educational programs on disciplines of the subject block “Human Safety”. A significant reduction in both the number of specialties in “List of Specialties” and unification of disciplines at general reduction in their number is expected. There were made remarks on the system of professional development of teachers involved in working at the field-oriented departments of Vital Functions Safety. Attention is drawn to the recent emergence of new separate lecture courses, such as “Technogenic Safety”, “Information Security”, “Corporate Social Responsibility of Engineering”, “Industrial Ecology”, etc. A special point for discussion is the corresponding sections in diploma projects: their volume, structure, necessity of implementation, the need for consultation with involvement of a teacher specializing in the field. There were presented relevant recommendations on these issues. Conclusion. On the basis of the results of the conducted analysis it is recommended to make changes in the curricula according to the scheme of combining the disciplines: “Basics of Labour Protection” with “Labour Protection in the Field” and “Vital Functions Safety” with “Civil Defense” in an extended sense of the content (social, information, environmental security, etc.). In addition, it is suggested to combine teaching labour protection requirements with the studying of production technologies, structure of machines, their operation, organization of building. It would be better to live and work safely. The article presents graphs, figures and gives a list of references