Boksha N. Trends in the development of higher education for the training of the garment industry specialists in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

The main directions of research of home and foreign scientists on theoretical and applied aspects of garment industry specialists professional training in universities and colleges of the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been analyzed in the dissertation, in particular, the reform of the educational system of the abovementioned countries, the problems of ensuring the quality of the educational process in higher education, as well as the peculiar features of engineering and technical pedagogy and the search for effective pedagogical technologies in vocational education. The preconditions for the formation of professional training of garment industry specialists in the Czech Republic and Slovakia have been revealed: the development of garment and textile production, political and legal transformations in these countries at the turn of XX-XXI centuries (the course аfocused on the building of the Western European model of social development and intensive European integration processes in higher education). The periodization of the higher education development and professional training of the garment industry specialists has been developed. Four stages have been singled out (intitial stage– 50’s -60’s of the XX century; stage of formation– 70’s – 80’s of the XX century; stage of intensification of development of higher education institutions– the end of the 80’s – 90’s of the XX century; European integration stage – early 2000’s – up to the present day) based on the consideration of socio-economic, ideological and organizational and pedagogical factors. The activity of universities and colleges of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which train specialists in the garment industry (engineers in design, technology, quality control, organization of production in the industry, specialists in the fashion industry) has been characterized: Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic; University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic; Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Czech Republic; Alexander Dubček University of Trenčin, Slovakia; Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, Slovakia, etc. The peculiarities of modernization of the educational process in universities and colleges have been identified, including the optimization of educational programs and curricula, the improvement of educational process, implementation of educational methods and forms taking into account the intensive transformation of the labour market in connection with scientific and technological progress; internationalization and globalization of higher education, which led to the intensification of Czech and Slovak universities in the European and international market of educational services.