УПРАВЛІННЯ ОСВІТОЮ УКРАЇНИ В УМОВАХ ДЕЦЕНТРАЛІЗАЦІЇ: СВІТОВІ ТЕНДЕНЦІЇ ТА ВІТЧИЗНЯНІ РЕАЛІЇ

Abstract

The paper reveals the issues of decentralise management in education through world tendencies and Ukrainian practice.Over the last few decades decentralisation of education management was provided in most education systems around the world. It is acknowledged that decentralisation has the potential to improve education quality and learning outcomes. The process of decentralization is reflected in regional disparities, conflicting policies, and elite preferences.The paper gives the analysis to decentralisation generally which refers to the process of transferring decision making power, responsibility, and tasks from higher to lower organisational levels. The goals of such transfer of authority and management responsibilities to local levels are: to develop democracy in decision making, to promote efficient use of resources in education, to make education more responsive to local needs, to increase local financial responsibility for educational services provision, to exercise greater professional autonomy for schools and teachers.The paper studies different types, problems, aspects and forms of decentralisation (for instance, functional and territorial forms of decentralisation). Functional decentralisation refers to the distribution of powers between various authorities that operate in parallel. Territorial decentralisation refers to the redistribution of authority among the different geographic tiers of government, such as central/federal government, states, regions, provinces, districts, and schools. Three types of territorial decentralisation are analysed: de-concentration, delegation and devolution. The impacts of decentralisation on management (and thus - the modernisation of managerial functions), study process are studied. A separate part of the paper is about the role of the local education authority. It is proved that decentralisation changes the relationships between local authorities, schools/teachers, parents, communities, and governments. The activities of the newly created Ukraine State Service of Quality of Education are studies. the conclusion is made that it should have a number of differences from the bodies of general supervision due to the constitutional changes in 2016 in Ukraine. Thus, the bodies of general supervision monitor the acts of local self-government bodies and examine their compliance with the law. While special control bodies control not only of acts, but also the process of services provision, they assess the quality of services based on the criteria determined by the relevant central executive body. The research gives the opportunity to conclude that the educational sphere is usually the most expensive in the budget of local communities; the system of educational network is ineffective (the low number of students at schools, outdated teaching methods and low energy efficiency of buildings); high budget expenditures per student per year in a rural school (it may be 3 times higher than the same costs in a big city). The problems are connected with the number of students in classes; low indicators of the external independent evaluation (external testing) by students of secondary schools; low material and technical support for schools; bad roads between the settlements; non-extensive consultation with the teaching staff, parents and schoolchildren etc.