PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION OF ACADEMIC WORKERS: NECESSITY OR COMMON REALITY?

The contemporary advanced world is representative of the increased interest in continuing professional education. The environment in which today's specialists work and continue their education is ever more volatile, more demanding, and more critical of possible mistakes; therefore, specialists are constantly forced to expand their knowledge and improve their occupational skills. In everyday life, the formal and non-formal learning ranks among the most common categories of continuing professional education, which does not diminish the meaning of informal learning. related to professional education has shown that most professional education proceeds in the workplace informally and is deeply embedded in everyday work of people [1], [2]. The authors of this contribution have focused on the professional education of two groups of academic workers: 1 - those with working experience up to three years, who are at the beginning of their careers and who experience intensive professional education; 2 - with more than twenty years of working experience, who are at the height of their careers and still improve in their jobs. This contribution includes an extensive research in which 671 respondents took part and which deals with professional education methods, their usefulness for acquiring professional skills, the influence of the length of experience on the quality of professional education, and other factors affecting the work quality and effectiveness of an academic worker. Research results processed statistically are a part of the contribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]