Approaches to the assessment of quality of general educational services in the conditions of decentralization of education

Abstract

The selected model of the decentralization of education in Ukraine involves the transfer of authority of management the educational network to local self-government bodies. The main task and result of reforming secondary education is the improvement of the quality of educational services. The purpose of the article is to develop a methodological approach to the assessment of quality of educational services and to identify the problems of their provision by territorial communities. «Quality of educational services» is considered as a complex, multicriteria concept, characterized by the level of knowledge of pupils, the correspondence of educational achievements with educational state standards, the level of material, personnel, informational, financial provision of educational process, innovation of the educational environment. The proposed methodological approach to the assessment of the quality of educational services includes two structural components: evaluation of the results of educational services and assessment of the process of provision educational services. The selected indicators of the quality assessment of educational services of general educational institutions are grouped into the following blocks: the level of pupils’ knowledge; infrastructural, informational, personnel, financial provision of educational process; organizational transformations of the educational network and the use of new forms of studying. The quality of general educational services of the united territorial communities of Lviv region is analyzed and evaluated. The most important problems of low quality of educational services are: poor resource provision of educational institutions in rural areas and low efficiency of its usage; lower level of knowledge of pupils of educational institutions in rural areas; frequent mismatch of hub schools with the requirements set for them.