Gorbov V. Social audit as Technology of Education Quality Management in Higher Education Institutions.

The conception and methodology of social audit in education quality management (EQM) are developed in the thesis using the ideas of theories of social control and social technologies. The social audit is generalized with application of the ideas of social responsibility as a social technology of a complex diagnostics of quality of the education services in correspondence to the certain standards and social expectations using the objective and subjective indicators which can be evaluated by sociological methods. The diagnostics findings are accomplished with practical recommendations concerning regulation of the education quality. These conceptual elaborations allow us to develop the methodical tools of social audit in education as well as to outline the essential differences between the social audit, the existing public diagnostic systems and the public control procedures for education quality. Modern experience of development and implementation of social audit in education is analyzed. It was described the different principles and ways of its development in education in modern states, that allow to define main social functions and models of social audit in education. The schema of social technology for EQM applying social audit is elaborated. This schema includes sociological diagnostics procedures, analytical procedures based on the national or international standards and procedures of developing the practical recommendations aimed at improving of quality of education. The schema was applied by author in empirical study of some components of the education quality in selected Universities in Ukraine.