Potential of educational institutions of secondary vocational education in solving the problem of network and telephone fraud

In the modern conditions of digitalization of all types of society’s activities, including educational ones, the problem of network and telephone fraud, especially among teenagers and the elderly, is becoming more relevant than ever. This is evidenced by the results of statistical studies, numerous publications in the media. The article considers the existing types of fraud, presents the results of a survey of students of secondary vocational educational institutions, and formulates a conclusion about the extremely wide spread of fraud among young people and the elderly. The relevance of the problem and the need to solve it are due to the insufficiently effective actions of existing social institutions for the prevention and fight against fraudulent influences on an individual. The article presents the results of a study of this problem, during which a significant role of secondary vocational educational institutions in working with individuals in risk groups (susceptibility to fraudulent influence) is recognized. The novelty of the results lies in clarifying the potential of these organizations in solving the problem by preparing college and technical school students to work with risk groups, determining the key form of their training through mastering the educational program of an optional course and organizing in the system of their professional training the practice of working with teenagers and the elderly who have fallen under the influence of fraudsters. This training is most successfully carried out within the framework of a structural, substantive and functional model, the backbone component of which is the optional educational program. The complex of organizational conditions for the effectiveness of this model is refined. Training of college students - optional course listeners of specialists in working with individuals most susceptible to fraudulent influence, involves the development and use of a special memo for adolescents and the elderly presented in the article on preventing fraud by fraudsters. When conducting the study, the authors took into account personal experience of interaction with fraudsters, as well as the experience of students of the Ural Humanitarian College, their parents, relatives, friends, associated with attempts to avoid fraud via the network and telephone communications.