Ensuring the unity of the federal system of scientific and methodological support for teacher professional development: Opportunities and risks

Introduction. Currently, the creation of conditions for the continuing professional development of teaching staff is one of the most relevant and discussed problems in international studies. This article suggests a solution to this problem through the integration of the resources of the education system to create a single educational space that may be of interest to the world pedagogical and scientific community. A number of documents aimed at ensuring the transition to a unified federal system of scientific and methodological support for teacher professional development are widely discussed in the Russian Federation. In this regard, an attempt has been made to identify and assess the attitude of Russian teachers and heads to the principles and directions towards the creation of the unified federal system of scientific and methodological support, and to determine resources to solve the problems outlined in the state order, taking into account the request, suggestions and evaluations of teaching staff. The research results presented in the article also meet the needs of world educational systems to build a systematic model of the continuing professional development for teachers, without which it is impossible to ensure the sustainable development of national education systems.
Aim. The present research aims to determine priorities, ways and means of ensuring the unity of the federal system of scientific and methodological support for teacher professional development.
Methodology and research methods. The methodological basis of the research is the system-based, integrative-variable and subject-oriented approaches. The leading method in the study is the analysis of pedagogical workers’ ideas about effective ways and formats of their professional development in an integrated educational space for more effective implementation of state educational policy, improving the quality of education in general and individual results of educational and pedagogical activities. To collect empirical research data, questionnaires were used. The questionnaires were developed on the basis of a comparative analysis of regulatory and legal documents defining the conceptual foundations for the construction of the unified federal system of scientific and methodological support, as well as an analysis of problems and trends in the continuing teacher training. The discussion of certain aspects of supporting teacher professional development in focus groups of teachers and heads of educational organisations was organised. The empirical study involved 7343 respondents from different regions of the Russian Federation.
Results. It is revealed that, according to the respondents, the main priority of the state policy of the Russian Federation in relation to the professional development of teaching staff is the creation of the unified federal system of scientific and methodological support to teaching staff. The study participants outlined the basic principles of the construction of the unified federal system of scientific and methodological support: the compliance of the formed unified federal system of scientific and methodological support with priority tasks in the field of education; the implementation of network interaction between subjects of scientific and methodological activity; joint planning and decision-making at the federal and regional levels; orientation and prompt response to professional deficits and requests of teaching staff and management personnel in conditions of rapid development of society and the education system. Among the urgent problems, hindering the development of scientific and methodological support systems, there is a lack of a unified approach to organising the activities of scientific and methodological services to support teaching staff at the regional and municipal levels; weak connection between scientific research and real pedagogical and managerial practice; lack of mechanisms for the formation of individual educational routes of continuing professional development of teaching staff and management personnel. It can be considered that the main ways and means of modernisation of the systems of teacher professional development are as follows: material and moral stimulation of teachers to professional development; improvement of the system of formal continuing professional education; the use of resource contexts of non-formal and informal continuing professional education, and other means.
Scientific novelty. The scientific novelty of the research consists in generalising the existing trends and problems of building regional systems of teacher professional development in accordance with the priorities of the state educational policy; determining priority tasks, directions, ways and means of integrating regional educational systems into a single scientific and methodological space of the Russian Federation.
Practical significance. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the research findings can be used to solve the problems of integrating the regions of the Russian Federation into a single scientific and methodological space.

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