Matiuk T. Relationship between Education and Socio-Economic Development

This Dissertation is devoted to the scientific substantiation of economic essence of education, establishing its relationship to socio-economic development of society, the development of proposals to strengthen the functional role of education as a factor of social development. The author proposes to consider education as a totality of all economic relations arising from the production, distribution, exchange and consumption of the results of educational activities. In this research work, the method for evaluation of socio-economic development has been improved by introducing into the human development index an indicator of expansion people's rights and freedoms, reflecting their freedom of choice through the level of achieved political, economic and civil liberties. The essence of the socio-economic functions of education has been revealed, and modernization of society has been singled out as an independent feature, which lies in motivation of economic agents to conduct social transformation by forming components of cultural and social capital. Foreign experience of the educational systems was analyzed, and recommendations for improving the education system in Ukraine were substantiated.