“ZNANIE” over the past 70 years

Comrades, we have gathered today within the walls of the Moscow Bolshoi Theater, which has hosted so many historical congresses and gatherings over the 30 Soviet years. Before us is an important and noble task – the creation of an All-Union Society for the dissemination of political and scientific knowledge. Our collective will, energy and organization must make this meeting the beginning of a great and very necessary public cause for the entire Soviet people

On May 1, 1947, a group of scientists, social and political figures and art workers appealed through the press to our intelligentsia and to scientific institutions with a proposal to create an All-Union Society for the dissemination of political and scientific Znanie .

This initiative immediately met with approval and support from the Government. By a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the new Society was transferred to the Moscow Polytechnic Museum and provided other opportunities for work.

The appeal of the initiative group, published in all newspapers, found a lively and concretely business-like echo in all strata of the population throughout the entire space of the Soviet Union. The Organizing Committee of the Society has received and is receiving many letters from our great scientists, intelligentsia, students, workers and peasants. These letters always express satisfaction and joy at the creation of the Society, offer active assistance in its work in various forms, and sometimes make valuable practical suggestions.

The support of the Soviet Government and the enthusiastic response of the public have strengthened our confidence in the timeliness and urgency of the Society. Emboldened by this realization, the Organizing Committee immediately got down to work. Over the past two months, the Committee prepared this general meeting and developed a draft Charter of the Company, which is now being submitted for consideration and approval of the meeting. The necessary measures were taken to create branch companies in the union republics and in the largest centers of the RSFSR. 220 institutions were admitted to the Society as founding members. To date, the Organizing Committee has approved about one and a half thousand full members of the Society.

Having received at its disposal, on the basis of a government decree, the apparatus and funds of the former All-Union Lecture Bureau under the USSR Ministry of Higher Education, the Organizing Committee did not interrupt the regular work of the Lecture Bureau for a single day and organized a number of new lectures, especially on topical problems of natural science and technology. Since the beginning of the work of the Organizing Committee to date, about 500 lectures have taken place in Moscow. The necessary measures have been taken to develop the building of the Polytechnic Museum and to organize the apparatus of the future board of the Society.

The purpose of the Society, at first glance, is so clear and obvious that its special consideration may seem superfluous. In reality, however, every day one has to meet with very diverse understandings and interpretations of the purpose and nature of his forthcoming activities. For example, opinions are sometimes expressed that the Society should be an association of numerous Soviet special scientific and technical societies, like the corresponding British and American associations.

This would mean that the Society should mainly unite scientists of different specialties with the aim of further developing science in the USSR. Another point of view is that the Society’s task should only be to popularize political and scientific Znanie , designed for the widest circles of the population of the Soviet Union. Comparisons of the two opinions given above show how wide the range of various ideas about the life of the Society is. Therefore, it is natural that the founding congress of the Society, first of all, will have to agree on this issue. Of course, even if we manage to reach a consensus, we still need to realize that the practice of further work will inevitably introduce amendments to our positions and intentions. But for the start of work, certainty and clarity of the goals of the Society are necessary.

The enormous social meaning of science began to be clearly revealed in Europe from about the 16th century, in the era of the beginning of the collapse of feudal society, the discovery of printing and the revolution in the field of natural science. In Russia, such an understanding of the role of science became widespread in the Petrine era, from the end of the 17th century.

Science itself is a typical social phenomenon, necessarily associated with the activities of entire collectives. There was no Robinson scientist who drew his scientific Znanie  and conclusions only for himself. The exchange of information, observations and logical conclusions, collective discussion of scientific results, criticism and comparison of them with each other, the elimination of unfit from time immemorial constituted a necessary property of science.

The Russian word «science», in contrast to the word «Znanie «, clearly expresses its social nature. Science is taught, Znanie  is passed from one person to another – this is the special meaning of this Russian word. Before the discovery of printing, Znanie  was passed from one person to another, from generation to generation, through the living word and writing. Typography has added to these means a powerful new weapon, the meaning and significance of which is becoming wider and wider before our eyes. It is therefore no coincidence that the sharp rise in the development of science coincides with the era of the spread of book printing. Our time has added broadcasting and sound recording to typography.

Humanity now has truly amazing means of disseminating Znanie . A significant obstacle on this path is only the difference in languages ​​and dialects and that special way of expressing one’s thoughts and essence, which is partly involuntarily and partly intentionally used by certain scientific disciplines. It is enough to recall the concepts, definitions and designations of mathematics, a huge number of special terms in each science, concise formulations, sometimes hiding behind a very large complex of information and concepts.

This, so to speak, «scientific shorthand» for a long time, even in ancient times, made scientific Znanie  inaccessible or inaccessible for the «uninitiated», for the broad masses. Mastering science took time, effort, and ability. Undoubtedly, with the growth of science and the development of book printing, scientific results became known to an ever larger circle of people, but nevertheless this circle remained and remains very limited.

This state of affairs is to a certain extent inevitable, since the volume of sciences, the amount of Znanie  accumulated by mankind is so enormous that there is no way to communicate them to all who have not specially devoted themselves to these sciences. For example, there is no opportunity to teach every modern person modern mathematics in all its diversity, in all its subtleties, unless he completely devoted himself to the study of one or another branch of mathematics. Likewise, in our time, you cannot be a truly Znanie able botanist who knows how to understand the extreme variety of botanical species and varieties, if you do not devote yourself completely to this science.

However, in the vast content of any science, special layers can be distinguished. In science, a number of very specific information, concepts, techniques are always concentrated, which are necessary only for a specialist, but practically little is needed for a person who is engaged in another business. At the same time, each science contains many very broad concepts, laws, conclusions, which often have a value that goes far beyond the needs of a given field of Znanie .

The general principles and conclusions of sciences in some cases acquire tremendous importance for every person, and not only for a specialist. Let me remind you of the doctrine of the atomic entity of matter, the law of conservation of energy, the law of universal gravitation, the doctrine of Darwin.

That is why even in antiquity, along with special treatises, we come across scientific works clearly intended for a very wide circle of people. Let me remind you of the wonderful poem of Lucretius «On the Nature of Things», written more than two thousand years ago and expounding in a poetic form accessible to every intelligent person, an encyclopedia of natural science from the point of view of the atomistic teachings of Epicurus. Let me remind you of Virgil’s «Georgiki» agricultural encyclopedia of antiquity.

The discovery of book printing greatly contributed not only to the dissemination of scientific Znanie  among specialists: the most important consequence of book printing was also the emergence and strengthening of popular science literature – literature for wider circles. It is precisely because of the possibilities opened up by book printing that Galileo’s brilliant Dialogues and Conversations were written in the popular language and, despite the enormous proportion of their scientific content, in an excellent artistic form.

Galileo’s «Weighing Gold», in which he argued with the Jesuits on the nature of comets, is still considered one of the best examples of Italian fiction of the early 17th century. The main creations of Newton – «Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy» and «Optics» – at the beginning of the 18th century caused a stream of remarkable popular scientific works intended for the widest circles. They were written by Voltaire, Fontenelle, Algaroti and others.

One of the first scientific books in Russia was Antiochus Cantemir’s translation of Conversations on the Many Worlds by Fontenel. The great mathematician Russian academician Leonard Euler found time to compile a wonderful popular science essay in three volumes – «Letters to a German Princess» – in which Euler’s physical and philosophical views were set out in an extremely accessible and simple form. Lomonosov, in his «Word on the Benefits of Chemistry», addressing his audience, said: «The sciences … want not only this meeting, but the whole Fatherland to be pleased with their learned sons.» On the same occasion, in another of his public reading – in the «Word about the phenomena of the air, from the electrical force occurring» – Lomonosov said: «About this, everyone has no doubt, who is immeasurable benefit to science, in the enlightenment of the people, extending widely,

The poet V.A. Zhukovsky: “We do not yet have books useful for a commoner and it is likely that we will not have them for a long time,” he wrote. «Are there many writers who would like to donate their talent to such a circle of people whose approval cannot be satisfied for the author’s pride? ..» – he remarked further …

… Znanie  is spread not only through schools. Newspapers, books, lectures, exhibitions, radio – these are the numerous channels through which, in addition to school, Znanie  has been and should be infused into the people. These sources of Znanie  are not just an addition to the school: they have a special character. It should not be forgotten that school is always limited, that, after graduating from it, a person in many cases remains with the acquired stock of Znanie  until the end of his life, unless there is a constant replenishment, refreshment and revision of this Znanie . This is true not only for people who are very far from science, but sometimes for representatives of the intelligentsia, specialist scientists. Real science lives forever, changes forever, never ends. Completed, ossified science becomes scholasticism. The special meaning of scientific propaganda lies in the continuous updating of Znanie .

Now you can return to the question that was posed at the beginning. What should be the goal of the All-Union Society for the dissemination of political and scientific Znanie ? The entire course of the history of our country during the Soviet years, all our aspirations clearly show that it would be wrong to limit the activities of our Society to the scientific environment, to special scientific associations.

It would be no less a mistake, however, to believe that the Society, to use the terminology of V.A. Zhukovsky, should spread our science only for the «commoners». Our Society should be a conductor and mediator of real, high, advanced scientific Znanie  from specialists to the people.

If in very remote and in times closer to us, Galileo, Lomonosov, Euler, Mechnikov, Timiryazev knew how to write in such a way that their works were understandable and deeply interesting for scientists-specialists and at the same time for wide circles of the intelligentsia, then for a Soviet scientist such a requirement should become mandatory.

We hope that in the ranks of our Society there will be all the progressive scientific intelligentsia of the Soviet Union. Broad public activity and initiative is a new element that is being introduced into the traditional Soviet cause of spreading Znanie  among the people.

Our home, planet Earth, is too small to neglect the global processes of the Universe. SPACE AND TIME have already handed the Earth a GREAT GRAPHIC called GLOBALIZATION. And we, the people of Earth, declare a mobilization of CONSCIOUSNESS, EXPERIENCE AND INTELLIGENCE, engage INTUITION, TALENT, GLOBAL ETHICS and embark on a difficult, but noble and grateful journey to solve the CHALLENGES of the THOUSAND MILLENNIUM and its CONSTITUTIONS and CONSTITUTIONS.

For GLOBALIZATION and the GLOBAL PROBLEMS of the planet arising from it, our glossary with its past Gosplan five-year plans and even the formula “Five-Year Plan in Three Years!” – is nothing more than a metamorphosis of the microworld. Incidentally, the All-Union Society “Znanie” used to publish a popular science series under this name. Globalization came inexorably into our world.

Suddenly it impregnated our consciousness and mentality, covered megacities and cities, and put provincial centers in bondage. Its signs manifested themselves in villages and farmsteads, invaded every home, reflected in the destiny of every person. It has predetermined the lives of subsequent generations and dictates its conditions to governments. It came invisibly, like radiation, and spread across the planet, with the speed of fire in a dry forest in windy weather.

Regardless of our will, GLOBALIZATION either makes us its victims or its riders. Neither the political will of the superpowers nor the combined might of the world banking system can stop it. It is objective, logical and unavoidable. It must be accepted or become its slave, its servant without the right to vote.

I am the supporter of positive perception, welcoming approach and active cooperation with global processes. I believe it is necessary to take an associated rather than a blocking stance in this process, avoiding a head-on collision.

In a hostile confrontation with globalization, the demise of its unintelligent, illiterate opponents will not even be noticed by it or by the outside world. The sacrifice will be as inglorious as the crunching of a frog under the wheels of a tractor. It is necessary, before the platform runs out, to jump on the platform of the train called “GLOBALIZATION”.

It is important to state: the need to manage global processes has gained critical mass. Critical mass must be managed. GLOBALIZATION inevitably leads to the elimination of borders and the formation of a prototype of global electronic government. It is necessary to free our consciousness from worldview stereotypes and standard arguments.

Many countries and peoples have not fully realized this need and are under the illusion that globalization will not affect them, that they can fence themselves off from it, shutting themselves in a comfortable niche with a familiar and mastered amount of wealth in the posture of a lazy presence at the feast of life. But prosperity goes out from under everyone’s feet and can go out from under the foundations of any country, even a rich one, if it stagnates in its conservative prosperity, expending the savings of the previous phase of its development. Such a worldview is reckless.

The danger of such a worldview is analogous to the recklessness of pushing the accelerator pedal uncontrollably in the latest Mercedes. Without losing comfort at high speed, the driver loses vigilance and can fly to the roadside under unfavorable conditions, leaving behind a pile of mangled metal for the edification of other dabblers of fate. It is necessary to be prepared for the coming processes, which no single country in the world can cope with alone.

It is necessary to learn how to live under new conditions.

The inexorable time is the most important factor.

It is necessary to master the FUTURE in a fast-paced mode.

The best simulator for this is our EDUCATION. But not the one we used in the last century, but a fundamentally new one, based on new mental attitudes and the latest technologies of introduction and dissemination of knowledge. The great scientist Vernadsky said: “Humanity is a totally unique species of earthly resources, possessing a very specific nature of energy replenishment – through knowledge!” The existing performance-limited classroom-lesson form of education is outdated, hopelessly lagging behind and ineffective for a globalizing world, a tool for PLANNING the DEVELOPMENT of the FUTURE SOCIETY. Global action in EDUCATION is needed, since the problems themselves are global in nature and origin.

The classroom-task form of education has exhausted its resources in our information age and has become counterproductive. The old education system has fallen behind in technology and productivity, creating a growing digital divide and nearly a billion completely illiterate people who cannot read or write. Meanwhile, the rest of civilization’s 5 billion is also lagging behind the necessary modern knowledge.

Compounding this is the 15 million, teacher shortage, which is 26% of a total of 59 million teachers. Current educators themselves need to update their knowledge, their conservative views of education, and learn new technologies for disseminating knowledge. Teachers and their personal knowledge are the product of an analogous TRUE past, and under the classroom-lesson form of education they themselves are its unpromising hostages. It is important to overcome the mental ego of educators-educators who present their compilations as “my knowledge,” “my lecture,” “my course,” “my content. What they miss is that their lectures and content exist for a knowledge-hungry humanity. The productivity of today’s education does not meet the demands of global governance processes.

The required classroom size must be increased by a thousand times or more, which is impossible in the real classroom. Counting on a face-to-face conversation with a course author is an increasingly unaffordable luxury.

Billions of people today do not have access to modern education. Billions of people cannot compete, cannot have jobs, cannot adequately participate in scientific and technological progress and cultural life. And so, poverty and destitution accompany their lives. The role of education in the sustainable development of mankind has not been sufficiently appreciated and has not been reviewed for decades. And here it is appropriate to recall the words of Harvard University President Derek Wok: “If you think education is too expensive, try ignorance. Today’s educational content, talented and technologically adapted to virtual export-import transportation, should be sent from university television studios via satellite teleporters on targeted demand to anywhere on the planet. Precisely, illiteracy and the resulting lack of competitiveness has resulted in more than 2 billion people on the planet living on less than one dollar a day, more than 3 billion – more than half – on two dollars a day. Hundreds of millions live in complete hopeless poverty, falling far short of even these numbers, which are hardly compatible with civilized life. Closing this digital divide with the current classroom-lesson form of education is impossible, and the digital divide will widen.

In the face of the challenges of SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, the creation of new supranational instruments of DEVELOPMENT PLANNING should be a strategic task for the world community. The basis of this DEVELOPMENT PLANNING is the worldwide continuous, universally accessible EDUCATION of people throughout their conscious lives, i.e., from childhood to a deep, healthy old age. It must be kept in mind that to obtain and carry out a DEFINITELY WORK, we need diversified latest and not yesterday’s KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS. Jobs for all and effective employment nationally and internationally puts GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT in question. GLOBALIZATION and MIGRATION are an organic fusion.

At the heart of any development are contradictions, resolved by new FORMULAS, TECHNOLOGIES, and RULES.

GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT must have GLOBAL NATIONAL FORMULES, TECHNOLOGIES AND RULES.

Betting only on the Internet also does not justify itself to the necessary extent. First, the Internet is very expensive and its relative mass appeal extends only to the densely populated developed regions of the Earth. The cost of Internet training is always high and proportional to the number of users. With mass training, i.e. more than 100 thousand people, it will be hundreds of times higher than the cost of training using satellites, where the cost decreases in proportion to the number of users. The Internet is within the reach of only rich and developed countries: the United States and Europe, etc.

For high-altitude regions, where almost a quarter of the world’s poorest people live, where there is neither transport (except a donkey) nor electricity, the classical Internet is not only unprofitable, but also unavailable due to natural, climatic, geographical and economic conditions. In Africa, it is 20 times more expensive.

This also applies to the Far North and the Polar regions. The same is true in the “hot spots” of the planet and in the deep sparsely populated villages. The problems of education and equal access to learning apply to the tens of millions of people in prison and to all of the world’s seniors and a host of other categories of people. In the language of financiers, uneducated people are a “red balance” and a burden on the shoulders of the world economy, and with access to education, a positive balance. Only a planetary mass education system with the latest global means of delivering knowledge to the consumer on the basis of modern satellite communications can cope with this task.

Until recently, German education was considered one of the most prestigious in the world educational system. Today, by many objective quality components in the world rankings, Germany has fallen into the bottom third of the progressive scale, despite having the oldest schools and universities with centuries of history and learning experience. The performance of a higher school, university, college, faculty, department, professor and the common faculty member plays an important role today. “Knowledge for export!” – is the new theory of success we put forward for all educational and university centers of the world, its social and economic component. With the current shortage of teachers, the modern professor needs not a 40-seat classroom, not a classroom, but an army of half a million listeners. The digital divide due to the PLANETARY BALANCE OF LESSONS continues to widen, turning into a GAP.

At the same time, the KNOWLEDGE for mankind is not spread evenly on the planet, like butter on bread.

Sometimes you can receive them only from the careful hands or lips of a unique scientist on another continent and not in a common language of mass consumption. It is absolutely necessary to change the old formula on a mental level: “Knowledge – for life!” to the modern request and attitude: “Knowledge – through life!” As modern technologies and tools for accessing WORLD KNOWLEDGE are being mastered, FIRST STUDY MUST be transformed into LEARNING. It is important to transform the selective genetic abilities of man into a stimulus motivated by interest and success, a craving for a deep understanding of the subject of STUDY, as a pleasure at the basis of a quality life and healthy longevity. It is important to achieve real and not declarative inclusion in the policy priorities of states of the supranational extra-budgetary super-branch of the planetary world order – EDUCATION OF ADULTS.

Today, not being prescribed in the Constitutions of States and the Statutes of Ministries of Education, this branch is an economic snowdrop in the state economy. However, its turnover is two and a half times greater than the aggregate state budget for education. It is self-sufficient because, it is demanded by a conscious part of the world’s population for career advancement and to meet the material needs of an adult and his family. When the number of illiterate, non-competitive people on the Earth exceeds a critical mass, they will automatically become a working tool of the criminal world and will be used and prosper as contract killers, drug couriers, fanatical terrorists or “human bombs”, which can bury not only the peace of the country, but also the SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT of HUMANITY. Planetary values are constantly changing. The export of knowledge and learning is becoming a serious business, and intellectual property is becoming the most expensive and profitable type of property. As society’s mental attitudes and views on EDUCATION OF EARNINGS change and its fundamental role is reflected in states’ policy priorities, the quality of life will increase by preserving the intellectual capacity, experience, and wisdom of the elderly. Elders are happy to remain in the creative ranks, instead of replenishing the doomed army, living in legalized suffering on the pension sidelines, bitterly waiting for “their time. Involving adults and the elderly in the modern educational process, ensuring their access to applied and practical knowledge and contacts, will not only prolong their effective role as mentors for the state and society, but also prolong life accompanied by a respectful perception of their authority by the younger generation. At the same time, the expenditure part of the country’s budget on medical care for retirees will decrease dramatically, on the background of grateful, rather than embittered, interested positive philosophy of perception of the natural stages of life. Due to this, the number of educated competitive productive population of the country and the world will effectively grow.

The cost of mass, diversified by age and ability of global modern education will asymptotically tend to the generally accessible minimum. Following the global demand, the CIS Interstate Committee on Knowledge Dissemination and Adult Education and the International Association “Knowledge” as the UN general consultant have membership with the status of the basic organization of a super modern educational structure – the Modern Humanitarian Academy. The Academy has its own space teleport covering more than 400 cities in 14 countries.

2,500 professors provide training in 68 specialties for 175,000 students. It is one of the five largest universities in the world. Following the conversion doctrine of military production, the CIS Interstate Committee for the dissemination of knowledge adult education and the International Association “Znanie” put forward, together with the English company “SatEduNet”, the idea of creating a World University with the same name and providing global coverage in the interests of world cooperation and international division of labor through mutual exchange in the form of export – import knowledge from leading universities and professors of the world. The technical center of VUDO is provided by the Research Institute of Space Systems with the support of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics named after K.E. Tsiolkovsky. K.E. Tsiolkovsky World University as a distributor of modern knowledge – the guarantor of providing the world economy with highly qualified labor resources at the national and international level. Technically, legally and already in fact the work of the World University has begun. But the heterogeneous perceptions, the inflexible national policies and the imperfect international mechanisms reduce its effectiveness through intervening local interests. The old system insists that the main factor for a successful education is the direct contact between student and teacher.

Indeed, this is an important factor. But, what can we do if it is no longer effective for Third Millennium society. Teaching tutelage is chewing up and sidelining the individual’s own natural qualities, which need an independent search for truth, for a profession, for a purpose. New teaching technologies are needed to respond instantly to changes in the human environment and geopolitical trends. Humanity needs to rely on fundamentally new knowledge.

We need a highly motivated independence of people in the study of new professions, disciplines, techniques and principles of life. All this makes it necessary to look for new modern tools for the dissemination of knowledge. Humanity already has them at its disposal.

Once Socrates taught individually, Plato created an entire academy with only a few students. They learned by walking in conversations in the garden. The students made a life from their teacher, imbibing his ideas about the world and copying even his way of thinking. However, the classroom-lesson system was replaced by the Platonic system when society needed thousands of educated professionals. The time has come to say goodbye to it as well…

After all, the population of the planet is growing every second, illiteracy does not lag behind and is growing even faster. The process of mental change is the most difficult and time-consuming process in our human life, because it affects the genetic, political and social status and aspect of our existence. But despite people’s tendencies and desire to erect, reshape and gravitate toward boundaries, humanity remains one organism of the planet. To overcome this “appanage-princely” mentality will help the young Island of the FUTURE – THE WORLD UNIVERSITY.

The fifteen-year experience of the Modern Humanities University and Academy established in Russia has demonstrated the justice of my arguments: the cost of education of 175 thousand students using satellite technology is 5 dollars per person per year, and through the Internet – more than 500 dollars; its virtual audience is 4 thousand times larger than the classical one;

Its students in distant poor villages and high altitude settlements have access to Cambridge tuition without the cost of leaving their village. Today, hundreds of millions of people living in the hot spots of the world, in utter hopeless poverty, in conditions hardly compatible with civilized life, can receive a high-quality multidisciplinary education right on the mountainside, in a pasture, in an aul, in a deep remote village, and even in a prison. In the language of financiers, uneducated people are a red balance and a burden on the shoulders of the world society and economy, and with access to education – its positive balance. Between SCIENCE and LIFE flows a GREAT RIVER. It is called KNOWLEDGE.

A great LIFE can be built on the foundations of SCIENCE, but first it must turn into GREAT KNOWLEDGE. KNOWLEDGE is Power only when it is used by LIFE.

Rapidly overtaking us, its quiet analog predecessors, the uncompromising, soulless, disregarding analogies digital THIRD THIRD MILLENNIUM, calls us to responsibility for the right to be successors of the NEW DIGITAL TIME and its unified for all RANGE. GLOBAL CHALLENGES and FATURAL CALLS do not give delay to HUMANITY for an inactive contemplative stance under the fear of NOTHING FOR THE NEGLIGENCE. This requires: STATES AND GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD, LEADERS AND EXECUTORS, ATHESTS AND BELIEVERS, YOUNG HEARTS AND GOLDEN MUDDERS to revolutionize the traditional, ingrained among the dogmas of a bygone EVENING and THOUSANDS of years, view and mental attitude toward you and I. The EARTH EARTH WATCH of the second millennium is empty.

Their grains of sand – METHODS, STANDARDS and SETTLEMENTS do not belong to the FUTURE. Without the NEW KNOWLEDGE, we cannot find the FUTURE.

In the budgetary and constitutional space, in the modern structure of society and the management of time, the life of the average Russian has three historically established phases:

– Fast, like a sprint, study to get a decent place in society,

– a long ascent to Mount Everest, work (or should I say service) in order to live decently,

– and, as a rule, a short, albeit indefinite, retirement to also get off (in English) with dignity on the sidelines.

Today, when the word WELL in all three phases of life remains a dream for most of humanity, these three phases do not make our lives quality, efficient, long-lived and happy. So what do we have today?

The winds of history have created and destroyed empires, changed socio-economic formations, redrawn the borders of states, creating the preconditions of the new on the ruins of the old. Human destinies, the fate of peoples, wildlife, the future of civilization were sacrificed. The planet became weaker than the contradictions tearing it apart.

Contradictions between people and states, politics and humanity, conscience and expediency, technological progress and the stock of resources for human life. The world began to talk about the unsustainable development of life on Earth, remembering the civilizations that had fallen into oblivion…

Spinning in a giant information cauldron, mastering the latest technology, the virtual world, interacting with the distant COSMOS and mastering the inanimate digital thinking, the younger generation is becoming pragmatic and soulless in relation to those who created the world of today. It makes its future not on the shoulders but on the belly of its creator.

More and more often the elderly man, and in his person the elderly world, is left with the unclaimed potential of his, not fully exhausted experience and opportunities, acquires the syndrome of “sunset” philosophy and fading, propped up and displaced by their own shoots. The curves of life’s attitudes parabolic downward…

The bridge between the past and the future is broken…

The present generation no longer guarantees its descendants the resource of habitat that it has had the opportunity to exhaust itself…

The unsustainable development of mankind is a disease of civilization, the incubation period of which is still unknown…

In the search for a recovery of the world community, the United Nations has adopted “Agenda 21” and the “Millennium Tasks” as the priority of WORLD POLICY for STATES AND GOVERNMENTS AND THE WORLD GOVERNMENT OF THE FUTURE

The UN has recommended that governments, national and international nongovernmental organizations seek new ways of partnering (PARTNERSHIP II) between government and society, the media, business and industry, educators, scientists, and youth to realize the MAIN PRINCIPLES of SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT. Among these principles, a special place is given to the UNLIMITED EDUCATION OF ADULTS FOR ALL OF LIFE.

THE CONCEPT OF EDUCATION in the world has undergone very significant changes in recent years. Previously, education was tightly tied to the budget of nations, which formed the basis of the CONSTITUTIONAL RESPONSIBILITY of the STATE to its people for their education. In the beginning of the century, knowledge was renewed every 20-30 years and society, represented by one generation, did not feel so acutely the lack of modern knowledge, preserving the conservative class-lesson system of education. Today knowledge on the planet is renewed by 20% a year, i.e. every 6 years.

Unfortunately, however, the traditional basic education existing in most countries, due to its inertia, does not keep up with the changing world. As a consequence, young people who get higher education by the age of 22-23 are carriers of already outdated knowledge.

They usually spend the next 5-6 years on their career, and depending on their talent and determination, they reach a certain place in society, and some of them reach the top managerial positions. During the career “afterburner” many people spend all their energy in this direction and, having finally acquired a high social position, often end up as pseudo-specialists, lacking modern knowledge, and often simply as intellectual bankrupts in high rank. The new generation, in its turn, will also suffer from the imperfection of the educational system and will be pushed to the sidelines even faster by the next generation of young people, who are saddled with more modern technologies and approaches to solving applied, financial, economic, scientific and technical problems. A new social problem has emerged – the under-utilization by each previous generation of its resource, experience, energy of creation.

Attitudes about the need to make room and, as a consequence, a complex of natural fading, accelerated biological aging, spiritual exhaustion and departure into oblivion are formed… And as long as the system and technology of education will lag behind the speed of knowledge updating, the effective time of each new generation will be reduced. Therefore, EDUCATION OF ADULTS, along with economics and nation-building, is the most important factor and one of the main arguments and tools of social development. Already today, in the first decade of the first century of the new millennium, when mankind has faced many previously unknown, acute problems, the ROLE OF KNOWLEDGE, EDUCATION AND CREATION has increased immeasurably, because without them it is impossible to solve future problems. And now, in the historical foreground, there are countries and peoples who declare and demonstrate the ability to provide a higher level of organization, ability to search, cultivation, and excellence in all its manifestations. It is obvious that the economic competition of nations is shifting from the production sphere to the spheres of science, new technologies and education.

The state and level of their development will determine the competitiveness of countries, their position in world markets, in the global economic community and, ultimately, their national security, including, above all, economic and defense security. The changes on the geopolitical map, as we see it, have already begun.

The development of the economy in the coming decades, according to experts, will be determined by resources consisting of “BLACK GOLD AND GRAIN”. It is no coincidence that many economically developed and rapidly developing countries, working out national doctrines, concepts and programs of sustainable and safe development, include the development of fundamentally new approaches to national systems of education as one of their strategic directions. The following fact is noteworthy. After the launch of the first artificial satellite in the USSR, developed countries of the West, and the United States in the first place, embarked on profound structural and substantive reforms in education, putting it at the top of the list of the most important development priorities. It is no coincidence that the first U.S. response to the outstanding achievements of the Soviet Union in space was not an increase in NASA appropriations, but a multiple increase in appropriations to EDUCATION and the adoption of the National Defense Education Act by Congress in 1958. It defined the special role of the adult continuing education system in strengthening the U.S. military-technical and scientific potential, measures to maintain the level of modern knowledge of educated (adult) specialists in engineering and science, as well as specialists in the field of science and technology, as well as in the field of science education, as well as the role of the adult education system in the military-technical and scientific potential of the United States,

The National Institute of Education and Science (NIEC) was founded in 1948, and measures were taken to maintain the level of modern knowledge of educated (adult) specialists in technology and the natural sciences, as well as specialists with a knowledge of foreign languages. At the same time, the foundations of a national policy in the field of continuing lifelong education were being laid.

And the continuity of this policy, which was based on the PRIORITY OF ADULT EDUCATION AND its EXCLUSIVE ROLE in securing the leadership position of the United States in the world. From Eisenhower to Bush Jr., education has always been at the forefront of their national security policy.

Over the past 15 years, spending on education in the U.S., in favor of continuing, has nearly tripled to more than $500 billion, almost doubling defense spending. The percentage of adults, those aged 25 and older, with a college degree has risen from 7.7 percent to 27.3 percent since 1975. The world has calculated and understood that it is IMPOSSIBLE to invest in the education of adults about 6% of the Gross National Product, allocating in each branch of the national economy (industry, agriculture, health, etc.) a share of its budget and considering the cost of adult education as an investment in production in each enterprise. The well-known namesake companies of the world work according to this scheme.

The Advisory Committee of Industrial Research and Development of the European Commission of the European Union, based on the analysis of the qualification level of the European workforce, in its report in the late 80’s came to the conclusion that there can be no competitive adult education system without a competitive competitive workforce, and without the latter there can be no competitive economy. It cannot be otherwise, because in modern conditions, when the share of human resources in the formation of gross domestic product in developed countries is more than 80%. The leading role belongs to adult education, which forms this competitive workforce.

The availability of such a workforce is a prerequisite for survival in the fierce competition for export markets.

Yugoslavia is a living example of the struggle for export markets (in this case the arms market), a laboratory work of the United States to actually demonstrate the destruction of an independent state. Examples of such a struggle lie in virtually every hotspot on the planet in recent decades. The winners will be those who can more quickly invest the results of basic research in new technology and begin producing high-quality goods and selling them at a reasonable price. This is the ABC of modern economic science. But without education and, above all, without education of adults, it is impossible to master this alphabet.

The conclusion of many years of research by the World Bank is the fact: – In the national wealth of any country, if we compare even the unmeasurable – the United States and the Malagasy Republic (Madagascar), the PRODUCTION COMPONENT is the same small amount – a little over 16%. The rest, more than 80%, as already noted, come from human resources. It is important to note that, according to experts of the world community, adult education is not an integral part of the basic education received by the young generation. The fact is that it should be the main continuous activity of the entire adult population, combined with science, production, services, throughout life. The Club of Rome will be discussing this issue in a forward-looking AGENDA.

Only by interspersing and alternating throughout life education, work and, within these processes and periods, free time for our hobbies, for family, for social activities, will we become effective, long-lived and happy, useful to each other, to previous and future generations and to the country, returning the planet slipping into the abyss to a sustainable development option. Thus, the EDUCATION OF ADULTS becomes a separate, self-sustaining SUPEROTRAL in the life of human society, since it is well known that the crucial decisions of the development of society are the exclusive prerogative of the adult population of the planet. In many countries of the world, ADULT EDUCATION has already become a NEW, NATIONAL field, with international, European, Asian, African and other continental, national management and distribution structures. ADULT EDUCATION is the only and most important industry whose supranational superstatus is unquestioned throughout the world.

However, the struggle of the traditional rusty in personal self-sufficiency conservative forces of the official BUDGET CONSTITUTIONAL EDUCATION SOCIETY will not end soon. There is irreconcilable vicious opposition of state and private, just emerging system of paid education. Here unequal starting conditions, official leverage on opponents, connections in the upper echelons of power, who are, in fact, derivatives of the old system of education, are unfairly used. Our society is a derivative of the self-expression of influential, power-hungry people who once received a long-standing, conventionally decent education. At the same time, they ostentatiously demonstrate their progressiveness against the background of mental backwardness. The budget-constitutional socialist system and the classroom-lesson form of education have created a deep rut from which many generations of people, governments and states cannot get out. Even the newest achievements of the modern world, like paper on a bureaucrat’s desk, lie dormant, waiting to be reviewed and accepted by the next new generations.

The conductors of the new, being outrages of habitual norms, attitudes and principles of life, stick out from the environment, causing its irritation and threatening fateful resistance to them. There is no dispute that, in the old days, the Soviet educational system was good and gave the world outstanding scientists and specialists. But, many decades have passed since then, changing the world, its scientific perceptions, and its view of the future. But there are catalysts to help keep up with the rapidly changing world of knowledge.

These catalysts are the latest modern technology. And on the basis of remote space interactive communications. Until recently we could only read about them in science fiction, see them in movies about space aliens, journeys to new distant worlds and galaxies. Even today even very authoritative and powerful figures and organizers of science, education, culture are convinced carriers and supporters of yesterday’s conservative methods of knowledge dissemination. And sometimes, some of them, in the name of self-preservation, are direct antagonists of the introduction of everything new and cutting-edge into the real processes of society, into social technology, to which our education directly belongs. The environment is literally swarming with subjects of resistance, resistance to everything that sticks out of it, sticks out, moves faster.

Among these subjects, we can find really influential people, still strong, but already outmoded structures and state apparatuses. But society has always owed its development to contradictions. This is an indispensable condition of any development.

Such problems have common features both in Russia and in the Commonwealth of Independent States.

They will continue to exist as long as there is REALITY, CORRUPTION, Bribery and GOVERNMENT, and state and political NON-PROFESSIONALISM. In doing so, we continue to think that we are running society. In reality, however, we are still managing the digital world, which is almost beyond our control, using prehistoric or, if you like, antiquated analog methods and solutions. It is difficult to take note without a psychological shock that large-scale military operations, flight missions and routes of ultramodern flying nuclear missile carriers are still calculated on a logarithmic ruler. It is no coincidence that the superpower USSR collapsed and in its place on 1\6 parts of the planet lie in a plaster sarcophagus, its former parts, once a single mighty body, not coalescing. These ostensibly independent states have pretended to proclaim a synthetic Commonwealth as a successful derivative of the continuing friendship of peoples who once proudly spoke the same language. Having employed thousands of unfit for FUTURE officials, living according to the formula of bubbling idlers on the funds of the SINGLE quota BUDGET of the CIS states, we, intuitively, but “secretly” guess at our mental incompetence. We are fooling each other, humming the space age with steam train horns and driving with the curtains closed in an unknown but the same direction. And all this is ruled by unconscious ignorance and a desire to be still a little longer and keep others in ignorance of the obvious.

By boasting about 50 years of our best people, in the same factory and in the same workplace, we demonstrate and preach ignorance, primitivism and worldview backwardness. The fine old educators of the “analog” last century are already unacceptably backward in their modern knowledge. They no longer have anything to say even to their former “analog” but advanced students. For today’s young people with a digital mindset from birth they are no longer teachers. They are, at most, students, but who and how can teach them given the universal global pedagogical deficit. Nevertheless, the development of this most promising industry on the planet – EDUCATION OF ADULTS, which has the power to change today’s dangerous trends on the geopolitical map of the world – is ensured by the integration and cooperation of state authorities and nongovernmental organizations. It is very important that, at its core, ADULT EDUCATION uses little or no state budgetary resources.

THE MAIN TASK IS TO CREATE THE CONDITIONS, PREREQUISITES, AND LAWS THAT MAKE IT POSSIBLE TO PROVIDE CONTINUING EDUCATION:

• As a factor in increasing the length of an individual’s active life,
• as a factor of maximum and effective use of human experience and intellect during his whole life,
• as a factor in eliminating the “sunset” philosophy of the older generation.
• It is necessary to PROVIDE FORMING IN PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS THE CONSTITUTION OF NON-Continuous LIFE-LONG EDUCATION.
• IT IS NECESSARY TO CONSTITUTIONALLY SUPPORT THE PROCESS OF CREATING A LEGAL FRAMEWORK THAT GUARANTEES:
• equality of all types of education before the law,
• the right to education at any age.

It is important to encourage the developing network of non-state educational institutions and structures that accumulate funds to finance educational activities. All these problems were discussed at the World Conference on Adult Education, held in July 1997 in Hamburg under the auspices of UNESCO. The Forum was held under the theme: “Adult Education – the key to the XXI century!

Its participants were: Ministers of Education of the 74 countries, leaders of major international and national public education associations. Russia was not the only representative at the conference.

Ambitious fiscal self-preservation departmental opinion prevailed: we, they say, are all right with the education of adults. But, as they say, ambition is not a position.

And a two-week refresher course is not adult education. IT IS A BUREAUCRATIC IGNORANT EYEWASH. One of the main issues of the conference was funding adult education for the world’s adults. Conclusion:

• A personal loan system for adult learners should be created and brought to automatic application;
• Create state and tax incentives for businesses that accumulate funds for adult education, and:
• All adult education businesses,
• employers who provide continuing adult education throughout life,
• enterprises that have taken over the pension of their workers and employees.

The conference in its declaration recommended that the governments of all states – to consider adult education as a priority of public policy and to ensure that every citizen has the opportunity to use one hour of working time a day to improve their education. Naturally, without legal and fiscal support of employers by the state this will not happen.

As for the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, we must admit – a new, modern system of adult education is only emerging. The desire of Russia and other CIS countries to accelerate the democratic transformation of society and market relations in the economy is at odds with the pace of change in the spiritual sphere. Historical experience shows that the success of any country in overcoming critical situations is determined primarily by the extent to which public consciousness was receptive to the achievements of world civilization. Only this can ensure an evolutionary non-violent process of transformation in the state. The main tool to provide the necessary changes in spiritual life is undoubtedly a system of continuous lifelong education of the population. A major step in the creation of such a system in the Commonwealth was the “Agreement on cooperation in the field of dissemination of knowledge and adult education.

In January 1997 it was signed by the heads of the governments of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Tajikistan. A year and a half later Georgia and then Ukraine joined the Agreement. In order to implement this Agreement the Intergovernmental Committee on Knowledge Dissemination and Adult Education of the Commonwealth of Independent States was established.

The idea of creating such a structure belongs to the International Association “Znanie”, which is represented in the Interstate Committee on an equal basis with the participating states. One of the most important tasks of the Committee is the transformation of educational and training activities, as well as coordination of legislation on adult education in the CIS countries. We are lagging behind, and will long be lagging behind the more fortunate states.

Today adult education is the most valuable resource and asset in the face of an uncertain future. Increasing competition in the labor market, structural changes in industry associated with the elimination of whole industries and the closure of a large number of enterprises, the military reform, as a result of which a large number of military personnel are forced to acquire a new profession, the most adverse effect on the fate of people, leading to increased social tensions and instability in society. No social payments of severance pay, no matter how great they may be, can give a person the most important thing – confidence in the future. It is necessary to create an opportunity for each person to realize the talents and inclinations inherent in his or her nature.

It is impossible to imagine pictures of the future without computers and communications. They have greatly increased access to information sources. The task is to bring them into every home, classroom, business, and, most importantly, into every hospital, so that the bedridden sick child or adult can remain in contact with school, institute, colleagues, family, friends. A number of other critical tasks of the Committee and the International Knowledge Association are:

• Providing a wide range of information services;
• Creating a technical base and network of distance education for adults;
• creation and development of information and methodological base of the adult education system;
• Creating a system of training teaching staff for the system of adult education;
• creating a scientific basis of andragogy and valeology.

After all, any human society in its development depends on the amount of knowledge, and the ability to select the necessary information from the vast flow. Global computer networks contain an ocean of information. Even a well-trained and knowledgeable specialist who knows English (the language of the Net) needs quite a lot of time to find exactly what he needs. It is necessary to create special information agencies, which would undertake the search, processing and electronic delivery to the consumer of the information he or she needs. The Interstate Committee and MA Znanie also consider the creation of such agencies to be their most important task. In the future, they will probably replace libraries.

Just as it is impossible to stabilize the economy without integration into the world market, which will ultimately lead to the financial collapse of the state, so it is impossible to ensure sustainable development without integration into the world information space. It is necessary for right-thinking people to help in every possible way to promote the birth of the adult education sector in Russia and the CIS countries and its integration into the European and world community. The basis of sustainable development of the Planet will become, undoubtedly, the European and world educational space of ATLANTS OF EARTH – adults.

Guided by the Declaration signed by the Heads of State of the CIS “On the main directions of development of the CIS”, the Interstate Committee has prepared a new program of its activities and made its proposals in the CIS Development Program. Together with the international association “Znanie” the COMMITTEE prepared and sent for introduction to the sessions of the Council of Heads of States and the Council of Heads of Governments the following questions:

– “About change of the concept of education in line with global tendencies on the threshold of the XXI century”.

– “On the division of powers, tasks and responsibilities between the systems of basic education and ADULT EDUCATION, as well as the cooperation between them.”

– “On opening the doors of schools, technical colleges, universities, and universities for use as training facilities for the system of ADULT EDUCATION.”

– “On the crediting of the continuous EDUCATION of ADULT POPULATION”.

– “On Amendments to the Constitutions and Laws of the CIS countries,” which guarantee:

o equality of all types of education before the law;

o the right of citizens to receive any type of education throughout their lives, without limitation of age.

At its third meeting, the Committee considered a draft model law “ADULT EDUCATION”. Thus, we consider a new tool of the non-productive sphere – ADULT EDUCATION, without which, according to the UN, the sustainable development of mankind on the planet is impossible. We discuss, in relation to the CIS countries, a fundamentally different, non-traditional, planetary concept of education under the formula: “Education never ends,” i.e., the EDUCATION of ADULT PEOPLE. Behind their shoulders stand: EXPERIENCE, STUDY AND PEACE – the happy union of three things. These are the themes that bind together the goal of LIFE-LIFE LEARNING. Adults are mediators between the past, the present, and the future.

Not finding common ground with the young, because of different starting conditions in education and informational tools, the older generations pass away, taking the whole library with each person. It is frightening to think: 1 billion totally illiterate people and 4.5 billion people hopelessly behind in modern knowledge – a path to planetary tragedy. Literacy and competence must be integrated into all the efforts of nations to confront the problems.

From the experience of rebuilding societies devastated by conflict, the UN has learned that peace requires much more than the absence of war. The roots of conflict lie in inadequate understanding and capacity. The seeds of war mature from uneven and unequal development. Preventing hatred is in education and knowledge. The first ingredient of political stability is an informed citizenry. The first ingredient of economic progress is a skilled worker. The first ingredient of political justice is an enlightened society. Education is peace-building. It is also the most effective form of protection. Investing in education yields far greater returns than any other. A global family of educated and learning adults will not make strategic, momentous mistakes. Unconscious ignorance and incompetence rule the world today, so the traditional principles of education need to be replaced.

The task is not to speed up, supplement, tweak or adjust the educational system. The task is to fundamentally change the attitudes underlying SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMANITY.

We do not have enough knowledge for a lifetime, and there are no pipelines of knowledge through a lifetime. At the same time, in the struggle for “a place under the sun” it is not customary to admit that we lack knowledge.

So we fool each other and society by replacing deep, objective, modern, retrospective knowledge with subjective experience, intuition and emotions. And these, as it is known, are only accompanying tools of development.

And if you add to this that more often than not our activities are different, something we have learned, then it is not surprising that we live in a society like a madhouse, where the stairs begin to be washed from the bottom rung. Thus, by eating into the life of the mature, creative generation, we create attitudes to the sufficiency of secondary or even higher education in the younger generation, which, having grown up, is immediately doomed to wither away. Meanwhile the train of KNOWLEDGE rushes through space and time. And for every generation of people, for every generation of governments on its way there is a platform and a sufficient historical moment to consciously board this train. But no, we, generation after generation, miss our chance, we – do not get on it. Creating petty affairs, petty laws and ideological constitutions, we concentrate on superficial, tentative questions of keeping afloat, missing the deep retrospective knowledge that accumulates with the speed of the geological process. We traditionally, comparable to moths beating against an incandescent lamp, are not running inside a train swallowing miles of Knowledge. We run parallel along the platform until it ends. The train is leaving, picking up speed, and we are…

We are the nations and governments. We end our run ignominiously in the milky cosmic dust, each with his country, with his imperfect knowledge of the world… It is ignorance that has made the planet weaker than the contradictions that tear it apart. We know much about the little things, but very little about the main things.

What is needed is a reassessment of values, not at the domestic level, but at the planetary level. We are people of the earth, not just our own ambitious regional society.

The UN, its Economic and Social Council, UNESCO and other institutions must turn towards innovation and innovators, bypassing the long bureaucratic mileage. In the face of the destructive role of the increasing unemployment, poverty, destitution and poorly managed MIGRATION, the INSTRUMENTS OF DEVELOPMENT AND MANAGEMENT must be changed, lest we face even more neglected PROBLEMS AND CRISIS. This is the TOOL, the Gimmick that will stop the outstretched hand of Poverty, create jobs, and minimize chaotic MIGRATION. And these processes will proceed reliably and fundamentally, layering positive historical results, like a geological process. To remedy the situation the Cologne Charter, signed in 1999 by the leaders of the G8, in which the problem of adult education is designated as the number one problem. If we can cope with changes in educational attitudes, then there is hope to cope with the karmic predictions of Nostradamus and other futurologists about the coming end of the world.

The inseparability and interdependence of the world around us is beautifully described in Rasul Gamzatov’s famous eight-liner:

Our world is a ship and it is getting weaker,
Suddenly squall is coming.
And the ship is carrying women and children,
And most of those cannot swim.
And if hostility flares up onboard,
And if sailors start a fight.
What is left for those who cannot swim…
What can they expect?