DEPENDENCE OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION QUALITY ON SOURCES OF ITS FINANCING AND SPECIALIZATION OF THE INSTITUTE OF HIGHER EDUCATION: ANALYSIS OF EMPLOYERS’ OPINIONS AND DIRECTIONS TO IMPROVE PUBLIC POLIC

Abstract

Abstract. Taking into account the fact that Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area identify employers at the level of one of the main stakeholders in higher education quality assurance, the authors of the publication conducted their survey within the non-grant project «Higher Education Quality Assessment». Among the focuses of the project attention were also those questions, the content of which was focused on clarifying the employers’ opinion on the existence of dependence of the higher education quality on the sources of its funding and specialization of the Institute of Higher Education.Using the tools of expert interviews and questionnaires, 184 employers from Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, as well as Ukraine-controlled parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions were interviewed. The obtained results were considered through the prism of the analysis of university ratings in the direction of finding out the specialization and forms of ownership of those universities that occupied the so‑called top positions within its framework. The analysis revealed fundamental differences between the trends of the national academic rating «TOP—200 Ukraine» and the international university rating «QS World University Rankings» on the specialization and forms of ownership of leaders of the Institutes of Higher Education. It was found that among the top world level universities, classical Institutes of Higher Education dominate and\xa0 within the sample selected for analysis there exists parity between the amount of private and public Institutes of Higher Education. The analysis of the national academic rating allowed to state the fact that among the top Ukrainian universities, specialized Institutes of Higher Education dominate, and the share of private Institutes of Higher Education is absent at all. The perception of the results of the survey of employers and the results of the analysis of the university rankings’ content through the prism of the dependence of the higher education quality on its sources of funding and specialization of the university, allowed to formulate proposals for improving public policy in higher education sphere. Among the practical measures, the implementation of which, on the one hand, will improve the quality of higher education, and on the other — will contribute to optimization of the state budget usage for the higher education maintenance and development, it was proposed to develop and implement two state target programs, namely: Programs of priority development of specialized Institutes of Higher Education and the Program of priority development of classical Institutes of Higher Education. For each of these programs, the criteria for selecting of Institutes of Higher Education\xa0 for inclusion in the program were determined, as well as the limit amount number of its participants was determined. In addition, the article substantiates the need to involve employers into the higher education quality monitoring at the regional and state levels, as well as formulates proposals for improving the mechanisms of public administration over assurance of the higher education quality.\nKeywords: higher education quality; the survey of employers; dependence of the higher education quality on sources of its financing and specialization of the Institute of Higher Education; directions to improve content of public policy in the higher education sphere; state target program to ensure the priority development of higher education institutions.\nJEL Classification I28, I22, E61\nFormulas: 0; fig.: 2; tabl.: 0; bibl.: 42.