Ozarovs'ka A. Public Administration of Quality Assurance in Higher Education

The thesis is devoted to a theoretical substantiation of the mechanisms for the public administration of quality assurance in higher education in agreement with the present and future stages of the socio-economic development of Ukraine. It was proposed to analyze the conceptual provisions pertaining to the socio-economic development of the state on the basis of upgrading the mechanisms for public administrative impact on the sphere of higher education with the aim to assure its quality as a "catalyst" for activation and intensification of territorial development, as well as an incentive for improvement of the competitiveness level of the state and its regions in the modern globalized world. The research terminological vocabulary has undergone a theoretical re-interpretation as regards the use of the notion of a 'system for quality assurance in higher education' which characterizes higher education as a separate essential socio-economic phenomenon, making it possible to conceptualize the specific features of a targeted impact of the state on the process of its modernization aimed at adapt it to the basic principles and up-to-date standards of the European educational space, and ensuring the adequate quality standards of higher education, its competitive capacity and accessibility. The results-based method for quality assurance management in higher education in the Ukrainian society has been developed and proposed for practical implementation, in particular a methodology for quality assurance in higher education through introduction of result-based mechanisms and the social technology of project management. Data has been provided and the results of a sociological reaserch conducted by way of expert polling have been analyzed with the aim to obtain information about the course of reforming the system of higher education in Ukraine, to identify the most important issues related to the development of the modern Ukrainian system of higher schooling and the main influential agents who implement the state policy of Ukraine in the sphere of higher education, as well as to determine the factors promoting the development of external and internal systems for assessment of the quality of educational services, delivered by higher educational institutions.