Communication Barriers of the BRICS Educational Space

The article addresses the problems of overcoming communication barriers in the process of building a BRICS educational environment. In the modern world, education is seen as a crucial factor of social development and a “soft power” tool in global competition. One of the global megatrends is life-long learning that allows the possibility of continuous professional training and entails qualitative changes in the labour force. It comes as no surprise that one of the main directions in developing cooperation in the BRICS states is education, particularly, building a new international educational environment. The article aims at revealing and further breaking communication barriers hampering the creation of a single educational environment of the states with different historical and cultural backgrounds, located on different continents. The paper analyses the experience of creating the European Higher Education Area, a single educational space of the CIS, the SCO University and the educational space of the Eurasian Economic Community. The author points out that all these projects were launched largely due to political and economic reasons. Among the advantages of the projects realized is academic mobility of students and faculty, a thoroughly worked out system of credits accepted by all the Universities belonging to the educational space. The disadvantages list a lack of coordination in the curricula and different approaches to academic degrees. The article goes on to analyze the causes of communication barriers in educational cooperation: ethnic and cultural, linguistic, institutional (socio-psychological, intra-university, IT, legal, financial). The author concludes that breaking communication barriers fosters the creation of the BRICS educational environment, which is vital for training personnel for the national economies of the BRICS states.

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