Role of valeological competence as the basis of health culture and health-saving behavior of young people in the system of higher vocational education

Abstract

. In the context of the emergence of a large number of factors (social, environmental, material and spiritual) that negatively affect the health of students in Ukraine, there is a necessity to form a responsible attitude to health of future specialists. Today, there is an urgent social and pedagogical need to consider the problem of health education and health care as a strategic direction of education system. It is the duty of educational institutions which is designed to ensure the solution of the issues of forming health-saving competencies and health culture of young people. Valeological training of students is a prerequisite for the formation of general and valeological culture of student's personality, which ensures the development of students' cognitive abilities in matters of health and healthy lifestyle through mastering the methods and techniques of cultural cognition; promotes the development of culture as a system of values, broadens the cultural outlook of students; contributes to improving the quality of professional training; enriches the professional functions of future specialists, prepares them for future activities. The authors emphasize that the process of forming students' valeological competence requires pedagogical management, which is the creation of pedagogical conditions that include the development of student's subjective position in relation to his/her health; organization of activity-oriented space that allows students to demonstrate valeological competence; provision of valeological support for the educational process in higher education institutions. The article underlines that the work on the formation of students' valeological competence consists of developing a system for monitoring the state of students` health; methodological approaches to actualizing and developing readiness for a healthy lifestyle; a system of measures to form valeological competence at the value-semantic, cognitive, motivational and emotional levels; development of a concept for coordinating the activities of resource centers for individualizing medical, psychological, socio-pedagogical influences on students. The article reveals the concepts of health culture, valeological competence, and valeological self-realization. In addition, the authors actualize the issue of valeological competence not only for students, but also for scientific and pedagogical workers. A key condition for formation of students' valeological competence is a conscious and reformed position of a lecturer. The importance and necessity of training a valeologically competent scientific and pedagogical worker today is determined by the general trend of deterioration of health of all subjects of educational process.