УДК 378.141.4 Strengthening the economic component in the training of prospective ecologists as one of the ways to increase the level of their professional competence

Abstract

The article substantiates that one of the effective ways to solve environmental problems and the transition to sustainable development is the greening of economic activity, which is impossible without a transition to environmental management. The training of specialists who have environmental and economic competencies sufficient to implement environmental management, both at the enterprise level and at the state level, requires improving the content of the educational program for training prospective ecologists by strengthening the economic component in it. The purpose of the article is: justification of the need to include in the curricula the training of specialists in the specialty «Ecology» of economic disciplines in order to increase the level of professional competence of prospective ecologists. An analysis of the relevant educational programs, conducted on the example of universities in the city of Zhytomyr, showed that they have only one discipline of an economic orientation – “Environmental Economics”. According to the results of a survey of 3rd and 4th year students of the Zhytomyr National Agroecological University, who are studying in the specialty «Ecology», the following conclusions can be done: 89% of respondents believe that modern ecologists need not only ecological but also economic knowledge in their professional activities. 60% of students have expressed a desire to attend a free elective course «Fundamentals of Economic Knowledge» during their studies at the university and 51% of students would like to study environmental management. Thus, most prospective ecologists are interested in improving their professional competence by studying disciplines of an economic orientation, in particular, an elective course «Fundamentals of Economic Knowledge» and a discipline «Environmental Management». It is proposed to include these disciplines in the educational program for the professional training of bachelors in specialty «Ecology».