The topical issues of classic university and school cooperation in the regional system of lifelong learning

the article is dedicated to the topical issues of social partnership in education. The author considers the cooperation between secondary and higher education institutions as a promising direction for the development of regional lifelong education system and educational management and demonstrates the effectiveness of the suggested approaches. The content and the ways of social partnership between the school and the university are discussed as an academic teaching support of the development of an innovative educational environment in a region. One of the effective steps to this collaboration is establishing an «attractive center» for lifelong education at university. The article discusses the participation of Smolensk State University in the organization of the Center of Educators’ Advanced Training and Development of Educational Systems. Its major activities and areas of focus are outlined. The Center aims to contribute to the development of a regional lifelong education system by the collaboration between the school and the university, and to create an innovative educational environment for the professional retraining and development of teachers and school principals. The result of the Center's practice is demonstrated by two model systems. The first one is based on the school-university cooperation in order to increase the effectiveness of the information and communication technologies in the educational process. The second one is the model of creating school specializations at rural schools. Both models have been approved at interregional research conferences and tested at schools of the Smolensk Region. The author discusses the content and peculiarities of the cooperation between the university and other regional educational institutions in the framework of the international project TEMPUS IV «Networking among the partner universities in the implementation of a multilevel system of training and advanced training in educational management». Particular emphasis is placed on the corporate professional development courses invented by university and school professionals. Additionally, the author suggests the way to organize the preparation of school students, teachers, and principals for the final academic assessment – the Unified State Exam.