The objective of this work is to identify and analyze the problems related to postgraduate education in the geological, mining, metallurgical and related sciences sectors, analyzing the ways of overcoming and training human resources to develop and advance our country before the problematic of the international economy.
Some strategies are valued to improve the current system of professional improvement of the Higher Institute of Metallurgical Mining of Moa (ISMMM), taking into account the transformation in the teaching-learning process in postgraduate education and the modality of distance education in the ISMMM.
To achieve the proposed objective it was necessary to integrate, in all facets of the educational world, the application of ICT, the postgraduate teaching-learning process, the blended learning method, as well as attending to the place occupied by basic training, updating and deepening of the professionals of the territory covered by the ISMM, seen from the new Cuban university.
Summary
This work is based on the identification of analysis problems related to postgraduate education in Geological, Mining, Metallurgy and other sciences, analyzing the overcoming and formation way of human beings to develop and to advance our country before the international economic problems.
Some strategies are estimated to improve professional courses, the transformation in the teaching learning process in postgraduate education and distance learning in Higher Mining and Metallurgical Institute
To achieve the objective was necessary to integrate all the world educative facet, and the TIC application, the postgraduate learning teaching process, face to face method and pay attention to the important place that occupy the updating and deeper basic formation of professionals in our territory.
Introduction
The historical development in Cuba of postgraduate education comes from the year 1975, for this date there was no specific strategy, but activities were carried out in some universities, mainly with foreign technical accessories, with little participation of production professionals. Only in Medical Sciences was continuous improvement and specialization programs developed. In the same year, the Resolution on educational policy approved by the First Congress of the PCC established the need to raise the qualification of higher-level graduates and to organize specialized postgraduate courses and the unique system of scientific degrees.
Consequently, with the creation of the Ministry of Higher Education in 1976, the Postgraduate Education System was nationally organized as the highest level of the education system for the continuous improvement of graduates during their professional life, with the aim of contributing to the elevation of the quality, efficiency and productivity of work, for which the Graduate Professional Improvement System (massive) and the Scientific Degree System (selective) were established.
In 1985 there was an improvement of the Postgraduate System in Cuba, within the continuous work of the organization. The number of courses was increased to about 2,000 per year, more than 1,000 trainings and about 150 Postgraduate Studies. This last form of improvement presented trends similar to the characteristics of existing master's degrees in some countries.
However, at that time it was not yet called a master's degree, since the term Postgraduate Study was better known in the member countries of CAME; In addition to the fact that in the USSR, for example, students were awarded a master's degree at the end of their undergraduate studies, due to the diversity of the structure of specialties that that country had. Therefore, taking into account the strong influence and cooperation with the socialist field, the presence of many of our professionals trained in those countries, the term Postgraduate study was adopted and not the nomenclature that was common in the countries of the region and the world in general, structuring our postgraduate education system on the basis of the experience of countries such as the former USSR, GDR and Czechoslovakia.
Subsequently, on the occasion of the III Congress of the FEU, in January 1987, Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz made a critical assessment of the structure of specialties and specializations (Undergraduate) of higher education, and insisted on the need to prepare graduates university, with a broad training and solid base, to later continue their preparation within a further training system. This concept determines the preparation of broad-profile careers and subsequent preparation within the framework of Postgraduate Education, which in turn increases its importance as a fourth level of education.
Within this framework, postgraduate specialties arise, aimed at providing university graduates with deepening in particular areas of related professions, developing modes of action specific to that area and in correspondence with scientific-technical advances, the needs of social economic development of the country and the particular demands of certain jobs. In this improvement of the Graduate System, the Master's degree is not included, for the same reasons that still prevailed that year.
In 1992, an essential process for the development of postgraduate studies culminated in our country, which, based on the accumulated experience and interaction with postgraduate practice in other countries, mainly Latin America, allowed to ratify its general and specific objectives at the same time. that expanded and specified the current forms of teaching such as: Self-preparation, Labor Training, Course, Training, Specialty and Doctorate and proposed the inclusion of the Master's Degree.
Upon the creation of Postgraduate Education in Cuba, constituting the highest level of the national education system and whose main objectives are the continuous training of university graduates and postgraduate academic training, during their professional life, contributing in a systemic way to Increasing productivity, efficiency and quality of work corresponds to the Ministry of Higher Education (MES), the guiding function in the definition and control of postgraduate strategies at the national level, which are closely related to social projections economic, political and cultural aspects of the country (Postgraduate Education Regulations. Resolution No. 132/2004).
In our country, unlike most other countries, special importance is attached to the continuous improvement of professionals and the responsibility of universities in mobilizing and bringing together their own forces and those of the central administration bodies of the state (OACE), based on this activity, in accordance with the responsibility that has been assigned to us.
Higher education centers have the function of promoting and coordinating actions, resources and wills to determine and satisfy the needs for professional improvement and postgraduate academic training of university graduates. For this, the universities focus their efforts on the economic and social objectives of highest priority in the country and in each territory, and special importance is given to the close link that must exist between professional improvement and the introduction and generalization of the results of scientific research..
Development
Since its founding in 1976, the Moa Higher Metallurgical Mining Institute (ISMMM) has developed a Postgraduate Education System that has been consolidated and strengthened from year to year.
The ISMM has played a leading role in teaching, research and university extension. Since 1992, the institute has set itself the fundamental objective of developing a University of Science and Technology and Postgraduate Studies. It is precisely in postgraduate education where the deep sense of academic, research and social work is put to the test. The scientific and technical results achieved by our center have allowed us to learn more about the geology of our country and the Caribbean area, develop new explosives technologies and geological exploration, geological, geochemical, geoenvironmental engineering, welding with explosives, and others.
This Postgraduate Improvement System of the ISMM was consolidated as of 1999, with the implementation of the national postgraduate system with a specific structure according to the conditions of the center and the needs of the territory (Hernández Noa. T. 1999). It has been recognized for its leadership in terms of quality and level of relevance, however in recent years, due to the changes that have occurred in Cuban higher education, the need to improve it and adapt it to current conditions has been appreciated.
The training of qualified human resources in the fields of geological and mining branches. Metallurgy, environment and related sciences, constitutes an essential element to guarantee that the country has the capacity to take advantage of the generation and application of national and international knowledge. For this reason, at the moment, great attention is paid to the System of Improvement for Teachers (SSP), due to the growth of the faculty of more than 20,000 part-time teachers and intense work has been done on its methodological, pedagogical preparation and to a lesser extent in their preparation in their specialty, starting the development of academic programs of wide access, to give opportunity to all part-time professors as well as those of the cloister,both in his ideological political training and also technical-professional preparation.This system of improvement of teachers has an integrating, multiple, flexible nature, it increases the quality of teaching. It has full access by all teachers, is based on motivation, additional effort and responds to needs to meet the needs according to the branches of science and the characteristics of the territory
Postgraduate education is characterized by its origin and historical formation, its social function, its educational processes and practices, and the material conditions of operation and development.
Social development requires continuous processes of creation, dissemination, transfer, adaptation and application of knowledge. Knowledge closely linked to practice is a transformative social force that the graduate permanently fosters to promote the sustainable development of society. Postgraduate education emphasizes collective work and networking; in a personalized way, it meets the training needs of students at this level; promotes the continuous improvement of university graduates, the development of research, technology, culture and art.
The Universalization of Higher Education in Cuba is one of the most radical and decisive transformations in the professional training process and we are in the presence of a new, more revolutionary and transformative university that requires a training process where everyone who is involved Appropriate learning styles and strategies where the community and its institutions are not absent. And since there are general trends in higher education such as the growth of enrollment and institutions, the postgraduate is a growth system and a phenomenon occurs, therefore it is necessary to control income, select and plan money to guarantee the activities of postgraduate
The quality of postgraduate education offered by Cuban institutions of higher education has a marked international recognition. Annually, numerous national and foreign university professionals study postgraduate studies in Cuba with the purpose of raising their qualifications, perfecting job performance or updating knowledge in their field of action.
The Cuban university interprets quality as the harmonious conjunction of academic excellence and social relevance and is also characterized by its flexibility mainly in its designs that allows it to be adjusted according to the needs of the interested party and are related to the constant evolution of the science and technology and cover various topics in all branches of science.
Academic excellence is guaranteed, with the existence of an institutional tradition in the program area, which favors the introduction of scientific research results, cloisters made up of experienced and prestigious professors who use productive teaching methods and resources appropriate to the characteristics of the profile. of postgraduate academic forms.For its part, social relevance is given by the social, economic and cultural projection. Postgraduate education programs have quality requirements and their management is aimed at achieving the objectives, strategies and goals of postgraduate education in the country, therefore raising this quality involves combining, enhancing and mobilizing the management capacity of everything the postgraduate actors (professors, tutors, managers, collective bodies and others).
In order to make continuous quality improvement strategies more effective, quality standards are defined in the evaluation and accreditation systems, corresponding to the various organizational forms of postgraduate studies; Self-evaluations and external evaluations are carried out, where the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are identified, and from there actions are proposed that promote the permanent improvement of the programs, because the external evaluation is carried out with the opinions of experts who dictate the level quality of them.
In the higher education system, the orientation of quality is important because there must be a control of education, social acceptance of quality, passivity, tendencies to submit programs to evaluations and accreditations, there are also university rankings, financing for the regulation of the activity of HEIs. With this, concrete objectives are reached to evaluate quality, in which the following actions should be evaluated.
• Diagnose possibilities and propose ways for the continuous qualitative improvement of the programs.
• Publicly certify the quality level of a program and provide information from society on the quality of postgraduate activities offered by the institution.
• Achieve national and international recognition of Cuban postgraduate studies.
However, there are currently some deficiencies; as they are:
• Decrease in the offers of professional improvement courses, due to the increase in Master's, Specialties and Doctorates
• low level of specialized offer in accordance with local needs for postgraduate training in economic, humanistic and social sciences for part-time professors at municipal university centers
• insufficient number of competitive distance graduate products with the use of new information technologies
• Inadequate instrumentation of the Teacher Development System (SSP)
Hence, the research problem lies in the insufficiencies in the instrumentation of the Graduate Improvement System that does not allow to guarantee a relevant postgraduate training in correspondence with the conditions of the center and the needs of the territory. Professionals in Geology, Mining and Metallurgy cannot be outside the technical scientific development and assimilation of the new technologies that are being introduced and that is why the need for continuous improvement in its different aspects is raised, with the university in charge of solve this problem.
The current system of postgraduate improvement of the ISMMM has been recognized for its leadership in terms of quality and level of relevance, however in recent years due to changes in the Cuban Higher Education system the need to improve and adapt it is appreciated to current conditions
Postgraduate education emphasizes collective work and integration into networks, as well as providing personalized attention to the training needs of students at this level; promotes the continuous improvement of university graduates, the development of research, technology, culture and art. To fulfill this variety of functions, Postgraduate Education articulates a set of activities that are organized in the form of two interrelated subsystems as shown in Figure 1.
The objective of professional improvement is the permanent training and systematic updating of university graduates, the improvement of the performance of their professional and academic activities, as well as the enrichment of their cultural heritage.
Postgraduate academic training aims at postgraduate education with high professional competence and advanced capabilities for research and innovation, which is recognized with an academic or scientific degree.
The organizational forms of the academic postgraduate degree are the postgraduate specialty, the master's degree and the doctorate. Postdoctoral training is a process of permanent updating for professors and researchers with the scientific degree of doctor, which may have different expressions in the diversity of postgraduate education.
The course enables basic and specialized training for university graduates; It comprises the organization of a set of content that addresses relevant research results or transcendent issues with the purpose of complementing or updating the knowledge of the professionals who receive them. It has a minimum extension of one credit.
The training enables the basic and specialized training of university graduates, particularly in the acquisition of abilities and skills and in the assimilation and introduction of new procedures and technologies with the purpose of complementing, updating, perfecting and consolidating knowledge and practical skills. It has a minimum extension of one credit.
The objective of the diploma course is to specialize in a particular area of performance, and promotes the acquisition of academic, scientific and / or professional knowledge and skills at any stage of the development of a university graduate, according to the needs of their professional or cultural training. The diploma is made up of a system of courses and / or trainings and other forms that are interconnected, culminating in the completion and defense of a job in court. The minimum length of each diploma is 15 credits.
The master's degree corresponds to the postgraduate training process that provides university graduates with a broad scientific culture and advanced knowledge in the corresponding areas of knowledge, a greater capacity for teaching, scientific activity, innovation or artistic creation, in correspondence with the needs of the economic, social and cultural development of the country.
The master's degree emphasizes the creative ability of students. That is why the activities of research, innovation and artistic creation ¾-according to the orientation of the program ¾ constitute the core of the curriculum, for which no less than 50% of the total credits are allocated.
The postgraduate specialty provides the updating, deepening, improvement or expansion of labor competencies for the professional performance required by a job -or family of jobs, in correspondence with the needs of the economic, social and cultural development of the country.
The postgraduate specialty is aimed at satisfying demands made by organizations interested in using this postgraduate modality in order to achieve a high degree of professional development in their graduates. The specialty is conceived as a joint venture between the requesting agencies and the authorized CES or UCT, which actively participate in the design, execution and quality control of the specialty.
The postgraduate specialty is based on the professional activity that a certain job requires, where specific professional skills are acquired and / or perfected for optimal performance, so the credits essential to achieve this purpose must exceed 50% of the total program.
The National Commission of Scientific Degrees (CNGC), directly attached to the Council of Ministers, is the state body that heads the National System of Scientific Degrees; This commission establishes the norms and resolutions for the development of scientific degrees, which are: doctor of science of a certain specialty and doctor of science.
The degree of doctor of science in a certain specialty is awarded to higher-level graduates who satisfy the requirements and evaluations corresponding to the programs that are established, within a process that culminates in the defense - before a court - of a thesis that demonstrate scientific maturity, the ability to face and solve scientific and technological problems independently, as well as a deep theoretical and practical command in the field of knowledge in question.
The scientific degree of doctor of science is awarded to doctors of science of a certain specialty who have carried out a high level of specialization work in the field of knowledge to which they dedicate themselves, with the defense before a competent court, of a thesis that contains the solution and generalization of a problem of a scientific nature.
The ISMM has been working very hard in the training of doctors since 1984; When the Scientific Degrees Commission was created in our institution, which in turn was approved as an Authorized Institution to grant the degrees of doctor of science of a certain specialty and doctor of science, of the governing careers. All this work was developed through the agreement existing at that time with the old Leningrad Mining Institutes and FRAIBERG (Germany), graduating from the same 30 doctors who were part of our faculty, while 20 doctorates were defended through national doctorates. Currently the center has 60 doctors trained in part through the national aspirantura for the part-time, full-time and free modality.As well as through curricular doctorates in foreign universities and his work continues not only in the faculty; but also with the companies of the territory and some national organizations, seminars are given on resolutions and instructions related to the process of obtaining the scientific degree.
The ISMM in the training of doctors has developed a great work through its annual projection of professors of the cloister and training doctors as an authorized institution of companies and organizations related to the geologist, mining, metallurgical branch; all this work is supported by Decree Law no. 133 of the National System of Scientific Degrees whose objective is to train and develop, from university graduates, scientific cadres at the highest level of development of each branch of activity in accordance with the present and future needs of our country.
Perspectives of postgraduate education at the ISMM.
• Improvement of the methodological work of postgraduate education, this contemplates, among other aspects, the strengthening of the graduates as the main figure within the professional improvement, we must move towards the accreditation process of the graduates.
• The evaluation of the postgraduate impact on user institutions is a task that is carried out, with research themes supported by master's and graduate theses and considering, in an important way, the support of municipal university headquarters and their students, since several careers in the humanities profile are suitable to meet this expectation.
• It is highly relevant to achieve the insertion of postgraduate activity in order to efficiently take advantage of the process of universalization of higher education; This requires working in this direction with a clear and well-defined strategy, considering the differentiation that may be necessary by territories.
• Distance education is another of the main challenges in which it is necessary to work very hard for its potential, for constant development, maximum if we add in this direction the concept of "learning to learn", which is vital for the insertion of our professionals in the changing advances of today's world.
• Take advantage of the functionalities offered by ICT, which is one of the most important contributions, easy access to large sources of information, rapid data processing and acquisition of new technological skills
There are strengths to take into account and weaknesses detected framed in the activity.
Weaknesses:
• Insufficient preparation of part-time teachers to carry out the change of teaching category
• Insufficient postgraduate offers for professionals in the social and humanistic sciences.
• Insufficient training of doctors in the humanities and their related branches, therefore there are areas that do not have doctors within their departmental group.
• Insufficient control in the areas of compliance with individual improvement plans, as well as those for training doctors.
• Insufficient amount of competitive distance graduate products, generated with the use of ICT.
• Insufficient analytical laboratory base to support academic postgraduate and doctoral training.
• Insufficient use of academic potential from other institutions of the Ministry of Higher Education (MES), and foreign universities.
Strengths:
• The work of the ISMM is recognized for its leadership in terms of quality and relevance of its postgraduate activity.
• At the ISMM, internal potential is properly exploited to continually expand and improve its academic postgraduate degree and the development of doctoral training, and there are highly trained doctors to serve as tutors.
• The links with the results of scientific research, the alliance with other entities and international collaboration are widely used to promote the training of doctors and academic postgraduate studies.
• There is a group of doctors of science in certain specialties (Dr. C.), with enough curriculum to aspire to the Scientific degree of Doctor of Science (Dr. Cs)
• The municipalities have professionals trained to develop various postgraduate activities and a high degree of motivation for the change of teaching category by part-time teachers
• The teaching departments have designed the postgraduate activities for the category change exercises.
• Priority given by the MES to the training of Doctors.
An important aspect in this context is the knowledge of the needs and possibilities of improvement of professionals with whom the center is related. Once these elements are known, we must establish the mechanisms and ways that allow us to meet these needs for improvement, making specific plans and commitments, hence the annual ISMM develops a set of activities entrusted to professionals in Geology, Mining, and Metallurgy, the Environment and related sciences.
The postgraduate work in this way aims to clearly resolve the role that corresponds to the university as such: complement the improvement of the professional based on the development of the country and constitute basic objectives of the postgraduate education of the ISMM, guarantee to the newly University graduates (in the period of job training within the productive or technical scientific sector, the specific knowledge and skills to efficiently assume the functions inherent to the positions that are assigned in their work centers.Perfect the acquisition of knowledge and skills of a general or specific nature not received during the careers that are taught at the center or that are necessary for the deepening or expansion of knowledge for the best performance of their activity in their job or position. Enable the renewal of professional knowledge and skills in accordance with advances and scientific-technical development.
In this sense, work is being done so that postgraduate activities; be as flexible as possible and that these are developed in the conditions that allow to relate theory with practice. In particular, the ISMM has a scientific potential capable of facing a systemic program of postgraduate academic training. In the current situation, the knowledge and development of postgraduate activities is required; especially when there are increasing difficulties to overcome abroad
In this sense, the ISMM proposes the following policies and actions:
• Establish a branch program for professional improvement of postgraduate academic training with territorial and regional subprograms according to the field of knowledge (Geology, Mining, Metallurgy, Environment, use of natural resources and related sciences).
• Establish the promotion of these national and international programs, as well as the collaboration programs derived from them.
• Definition of priority criteria for the granting of material resources and complementary searches for financing.
• Promote the creation of interdisciplinary and inter-institutional programs.
• Consolidate and raise the academic levels of the cloisters that develop the aforementioned activities.
• Integration in the production and research centers, achieving full participation in Master's programs and the training of Doctors.
• Establish flexible mechanisms and criteria for the accreditation and recognition of equivalence of the programs
Final thoughts
For all the above, I arrive at the following conclusions:
• Refine the strategy for the use of ICT in graduate school through courses, seminars and conferences for all professors, teaching support technicians and administrative staff.
• Diagnose possibilities for the improvement of graduate programs.
• Create the bases for the educational technology laboratory that generates informational products for distance graduate studies.
• Disseminate the distance education methodology so that it is better and more used by the professors who teach postgraduate activities and require the teaching departments to prepare these activities on an interactive platform so that they are taught in the distance mode.
• Demand and improve systematic methodological work in the postgraduate course taught and determine responsibility for all these actions, both in Cuba and abroad.
• Obtain a space on the Weeb page of the center so that there is an informative and interactive platform for postgraduate studies and that the distance education platform be set up at the ISMM.
And I propose the following actions to improve postgraduate activity at the ISMM:
• Take advantage of the integration with the UH, UO to strengthen the doctoral projection until 2012 and create strategic alliances to develop doctoral training programs with both national and foreign universities.
• Take advantage of the possibilities offered by the Eastern Network for the Training of Doctors, to train two doctors in the next 4 years.
• Create the bases for the educational technologies laboratory to generate computer products for remote postgraduate studies.
• Use the NTIC Masters to develop platforms that favor the obtaining of postgraduate products at a distance.
• Take further advantage of the possibilities offered by integration with the Business Group. CUBANIQUEL, from MINBAS and others, as well as international collaboration, to support postgraduate studies.
• Control monitoring of compliance with the stages of the work plan of each applicant according to their modalities.
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