EDUCATIONAL AND PROFESSIONAL PATHWAY “VOCATIONAL EDUCATION – UNIVERSITY (FULL-TIME)” FOR STUDENTS IN TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMS

Background. With an increase in the number of school graduates entering the institutions of the vocational education system, and an increase in the variability of educational and professional trajectories of young people in general, the relevance of studying students who came to university after graduating from college increases. The question of the reasons for the admission of such students to full-time education and the possibilities of their professional development remains poorly understood. Purpose. The objective is to study the transition trajectory of university students – vocational education graduates studying in full-time teacher-training programs, as a feature of their educational and professional development. Materials and methods. The analysis of admission statistics at Smolensk State University made it possible to identify the enrollment rates of secondary vocational education graduates and justify the sampling for the qualitative method — interviews, in which full-time students from 1st to 4th year, studying in teaching programs, participated. An analysis was conducted on 12 structured interviews, which characterized the educational trajectories of students who were graduates of teacher training and non-pedagogical programs Results. The transit educational trajectory was planned by all respondents, but its reasons were due to factors of a different nature: territorial or personal. Two-thirds of the respondents entered pedagogical programs already having a teaching education, which generally characterizes the awareness of professional choice and is a positive prerequisite for their educational and professional development. The shift in the direction of training to pedagogical is due to a positive attitude towards this field but characterizes students as experiencing difficulties in professional self-determination. The choice of full-time education is driven by both intrinsic motives (to gain more knowledge and become a qualified professional) and economic and social reasons.