ENSURING QUALITY OF EDUCATION AS A PRIORITY AREA OF PUBLIC POLICY

Abstract

The authors claim that “populism” as a phenomenon becomes the aAbstract. The article considers the main approaches to ensuring the education quality as a priority direction of public policy, which were reflected in the National Strategy for the Development of Education in Ukraine for the period up to 2021, namely:

• development of a systematic approach to public quality management based on international standards and principles;
• development and implementation of integrated public administration systems;
• participation in international, national, regional and sectoral competitions of educational quality;
• participation in international comparative studies of educational quality (TIMSS, PISA, PIRLS, etc.);
• active use of a set of methods and tools of quality management.

It is found that the only approach to understanding the essence of the “quality of education” concept remains unclear to date. This is explained by the complexity of the category “quality” itself, the diversity of interpretations of its components that control quality; inconsistency in the understanding of the education quality criteria by the subjects of educational policy (the state, employers, recipients of education, educational institutions, etc.). The views on the meaning of the education quality in the scientific circulation are summarized in the following paragraphs. The article concentrates on the views on the education quality meaning in the scientific circulation.

The most important components of the quality of education are defined, namely: quality of values, goals and norms; quality of conditions; the quality of the education process, which can be divided into the quality of its content and the quality of educational technology; quality of education result.

The basic functions of public quality management are: to plan, to maintain motivation, to control and to improve. It is emphasized that the implementation of these functions is possible under the conditions of applying a comprehensive approach, which involves the formation of a quality management system.

It is emphasized that the basic principles on which the quality management system of higher education institutions should be created, maintained in working condition and constantly improved are the following: orientation on the recipients of educational services, responsibility of management, competence of pedagogical and scientific-pedagogical staff, procedural approach, systematic approach to quality management, quality monitoring, decision-making based on documented facts, mutually beneficial relationships with partners.