University as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: the Past and the Present

Abstract

We carried out the review of the main educational strategies which present the basis of university education in antiquity, in the medieval period and at present. The educational model created during the antique period was based on ideals of beauty and harmony, that assumed an equivalence of spiritual and corporal in personality formation as it is demanded by the nature. In philosophy of education in the medieval period there was an idea of person's transformation through education and belief by means of classical literature which was considered as a timeless knowledge source. The university was thought of as educational institution where it is possible to approach to universal knowledge. We consider that in modern society its development has transitive nature. The foundation of the educational process is not the universal knowledge, but the skill to find bearings in fast-changing knowledge stream, to adapt and find opportunities for self-fulfillment under the conditions of continuous change. In the single information and educational space it became possible to make educational process continuous as a condition of person's improvement. We conceive the idea of continuous or lifelong learning as the necessary and natural process acting as a precondition of forming integral personality and social wellbeing.