Keyword: «development of the xxi century skills»

The modern development of the economy and industry in Russia shows a great interest of employers in mid-level specialists. Today, there is interest on the part of the state in improving the quality of secondary vocational education (SVE), and "Professionalitet" is being actively introduced, suggesting more shortened temporary forms of training. At the same time, an employer would like to have a ready-made specialist with well-formed professional competences and personal characteristics. The purpose of this article is to consider possible options for improving the quality of education in the vocational education system, taking into account the trends in the development of modern society. This work is based on a theoretical review, analysis and generalization of domestic and foreign literature on the problem of the research. Thus, the development of the society under the circumstances of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 is of great interest and dictates some requirements regarding the quality of education, the formation of competences, thinking. It was concluded that the presence of hard skills is not enough for a modern specialist, it is a great demand for creativity, the ability to spontaneity and improvisation, entrepreneurial thinking, courage, initiative. According to the studied literature, graduates of the vocational school have an insufficiently formed level of systemic thinking as the ability to analyze and make adequate decisions due to the predominance of clip thinking. Clip thinking, despite the speed of material analysis, is characterized by fragmentation and superficial assessment, which can negatively affect the successful functioning of a person in society. It is concluded that with the development of technology and clip thinking, the education system can no longer fully rely on traditional teaching methods, it must look for more effective and modern ways of interacting with students. One of these methods is virtual reality (VR technology). The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that the authors identified the need to develop systems thinking among students of secondary vocational education institutions and the possibility of its development through the use of VR technologies, described ways of using virtual reality, which helps improve professional skills, as well as imagination, memory, cognitive abilities , and make non-standard decisions.