Herasymenko O. Ensuring the lifelong learning quality of European countries in conditions of social transformations (the second half of XX – the beginning of XXI century)

The thesis provides a theoretical overview of the issue of ensuring the quality of lifelong learning, which is very important in the 21st century, through the prism of factors that have a political, social, economic, cultural basis. With the help of the analysis of the development of the national education systems of Ukraine and the studied European countries, as well as a systematic review of the concept of quality assurance of lifelong learning, the thesis attempted a comparative analysis of the experience of European countries in order to identify and further use the best practices of quality assurance of lifelong learning in Ukraine, which would contribute increasing its competitiveness. The objective of our thesis is to reveal the specifics of quality assurance of lifelong learning in European countries in the conditions of social transformations, to outline the trends of further development of lifelong learning and to substantiate the possibilities of creative use of constructive ideas and practices of foreign experience of quality assurance in the system of lifelong learning of Ukraine. The scientific novelty and theoretical significance of the obtained results is that the structure of the lifelong learning systems of Finland, Sweden and Spain is determined for the first time in their diversity, and their common and distinctive features are revealed; the peculiarities of the functioning of the lifelong learning system of European countries are characterized and their similarities and positive features are established (autonomy of educational institutions; expansion of strong international contacts; guaranteed access to education regardless of geographical location and social origin; stable funding; strong regulatory and legal framework; compliance of educational programs with current labor market demands); the problem of ensuring the quality of lifelong learning in European countries was studied both at the theoretical level (philosophical, economic, social and pedagogical aspects) and at the level of practice of ensuring the quality of lifelong learning in national contexts; the trends of the further development of quality lifelong learning are outlined and the mechanisms of its provision are highlighted; positive practices of the experience of ensuring the quality of lifelong learning in Finland, Sweden and Spain in the conditions of social transformations are revealed and the possibilities of their creative use in the national education system are outlined.