Gamification of vocational education: is the game worth the candle?

The global trend towards digitalization of all areas of society’s life has led to changes affecting the field of vocational education. Today, the work of a teacher is partially compensated by technology, requiring knowledge and skills in the field of digitalization. New competencies are emerging, new personnel potential of education, new educational concepts are being formed. Educational standards have raised requirements for the organization and quality of vocational education. However, education lags behind modern realities, remaining conservative in nature. The actualization of activities and tasks in the vocational education system indicates the need to improve the quality of training of graduates and improve the educational process. The introduction of digital gaming technologies into the educational process is not unambiguously assessed by practicing teachers. Modern vocational training methods focus on subject skills but often ignore important components of career success, such as leadership, communication, and collaboration. Unlike traditional forms of teacher work, gamification has an active, non-imitative nature. The educational process, in which elements of digital gaming technologies are introduced, transforms the organizational work of the teacher while maintaining the content of the discipline. The purpose of this article is to comprehend modern trends and challenges in professional education, which is faced with the tasks of motivation and the use of digital gaming technologies by teachers and students in the educational process. The author considers one of the solutions to these problems — the use of gamification elements in the educational process. Shows the pros and cons of the ongoing changes and the reasons for the rejection of these digital technologies by teachers. The small experience accumulated by the vocational education system and its insufficient comprehension actualize the work in the direction of studying the phenomenon of gamification of education.