Educational policy and quality control of higher education: understanding and evaluation features[Образовательная Политика И Управление Качеством Высшего Образования: Понимание И Особенности Оценки]

Quality control of higher education is considered on the basis of applying the approach presented in foreign and national management and sociological knowledge, according to which quality has indicators that can be measured. In this interpretation, quantity is an indicator (property) of the quality of an object. Another important methodological idea presented in the national knowledge is to justify the fact that qualities have properties that can be measured, that quantitative indicators are applicable to assess the quality of education in the process of managing the latter. The article proves that the quality of education policy and quality control are complementary phenomena. Quality management includes not only the functions that need to be performed in order to achieve the appropriate quality of education, but also the development of the educational project policy itself. The most essential elementary properties of educational policy are revealed. The actual quality of educational projects is insufficient, which determines the need for an evaluation approach to educational policy that allows determining its desired level. The choice of evaluation criteria depends on the elements of the policy being evaluated. In addition to the elementary properties of education policy, integrative quantitative quality indicators are inherent. The article considers such an indicator as the level and scale of students’ training, its features (multi-factority, multiplicity of its components, specifics of competence assessment), on the basis of this, the concept of “education quality control” is clarified. The specifics of quality control of higher education (in comparison with the existing one in the sphere of production of goods and services) is related to quality planning, which includes the development and implementation of various measures to improve the education process without fixing planned indicators. Evaluation of achievements is possible only after the implementation of activities by comparing the results achieved and previous ones. This type of education quality control is defined as the hypotheses management.