About Silver Universities
About Silver Universities
Nowadays universities provide a concentration of human capital as a carrier of complementary intellectual resources. Success depends on how effectively the territory uses intellectual capital and intangible assets such as skills and creativity. Equally important is the presence of adequate infrastructure and connection with the socio-cultural environment.
Modern universities actively interact with the local community; develop urban areas; engage in charitable activities by supporting the volunteer movement; implement the goals of sustainable development, acting as initiators of new technologies and innovations. Many projects go far beyond the boundaries of higher education institutions.
The international practice refers such extracurricular social activities of universities to the “third mission”. If the first two missions – educational and research activities – are more focused on internal life, the third mission is aimed at changes in society.
The expansion of the “third mission” in universities is on the agenda of many stakeholders. In particular, in light of the transformation of Kazakhstani education, the opening of “Silver Universities” is fully consistent with the implementation of life-long learning.
It is important to note that “Silver Universities” or “Third Age Universities” are active practically all over the world, and this movement is several decades old. As a rule, after retirement people have more free time, which can be spent with benefit. The activity of “Silver Universities” helps pensioners and elderly people to find a new meaning in life, to self-actualize and self-actualize, to prolong their life activity and to expand their social circle. Undoubtedly, the main goal of the “Silver Universities” is considered to be the opportunity for elderly people to gain new knowledge and skills, gain self-confidence and actively participate in the social life of the city.
In order to implement the “third mission”, the “Silver University” opened its doors at the Rudny Industrial Institute. As part of the work of the “Silver University” the university offered a portfolio of training programs for the elderly, which included courses in modern IT-technologies, foreign languages, housing and utilities, increasing legal and financial literacy. Educational activities in the developed programs are mainly aimed at acquiring new knowledge and skills, for example:
in the course on housing and communal services – acquisition of knowledge in solving household issues;
in the course on IT-technology – efficiency of using technical devices to obtain public services in electronic format;
in the course on legal knowledge – solving simple legal issues, etc.
The first group of participants, organized by the City Council of Veterans, took information literacy courses. Today’s children are born with a smartphone in their hands, but the older generation, in order not to fall out of modern life, has to make a considerable effort to master new technologies, and even, in a sense, to restructure their consciousness.
Moreover, digitalization has become a decisive lever in responding to the pandemic with tools that track the spread of the risk of infection. The pandemic, in turn, highlighted the problem of the digital divide and low digital literacy.
Given the current situation, the course to improve digital literacy includes a detailed introduction to the services of the e-government portal of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as gaining skills to solve a variety of tasks of everyday life (doctor’s appointment, registration in a personal account, sending messages on WhatsApp, work with chatbots in Telegram, Facebook and Vkontakte, etc.).
In the future, we hope that in mastering digital reality, our students will go beyond elementary actions and already begin to conduct their own blogs, edit videos, and most importantly, continue their education also in an online format without feeling uncomfortable.
In the long term, we will provide disabled citizens of retirement age and disabled pensioners who, due to their disability, cannot actively participate in face-to-face educational courses with free access to online educational courses, which are available at the Institute’s own online platform. The format of the online courses involves a great deal of visual information, assignments for independent work, including tests, creative tasks, and peer review exercises.
In addition, a new course “Legal Knowledge in Everyday Life” was opened, which aims to ensure social protection of the older generation by increasing their legal literacy, providing opportunities for personal development and improving the quality of everyday life. The course program includes issues of civil, housing, land law, protection of consumer rights, tax and pension relations, as well as features of drafting procedural and other documents, appealing to state bodies and courts.
It’s no secret that many of our students have set a goal to learn a foreign language, bought textbooks and CDs, but, exhausted by daily chores, put off learning again and again. Now, retired seniors have the opportunity to get back to their goal. After all, foreign language courses have been opened for them. In the future, we plan to give older people the opportunity to deepen and improve their knowledge in advanced language training programs as well.
There is no doubt that training within the “Silver University” contributes to the socialization of the older generation and allows to meet their need to acquire new knowledge, which is inherent in people of any age.
And the university thus carries out activities that have a high potential of usefulness for the urban community.
We clearly understand that an institution cannot live in isolation, to be a “thing in itself. Maximum openness and a high degree of responsibility to the community, the region of presence, and to everyone who interacts with us are the main components of the “third mission” of Rudny Industrial Institute.
