IMPLEMENTATION OF CREDIT-MODULE SYSTEM AT HIGHER MEDICAL SCHOOL EDUCATION IN THE CONDITIONS OF MEDICAL SECTOR REFORMING

Abstract. In the sphere of modern higher education, the following main requirements to the performance level of modern professional of any profile can be distinguished: comprehensive fundamental expertise, capacity to work in the team, fast mastering of new technologies, self-education skills and ability to conduct creative work and research. These qualities of a specialist become the main objectives and reference points in building the modern system of higher education that would contribute to creation of expertise, respective access, management, dissemination and achievement control. The requirements to medical education are one of the most precise, especially on the background of critical demographic situation in the world, in general, and in Ukraine, in particular. The participation of the Ukrainian system of higher education in the Bologna reforms should be aimed only at its development and acquisition of new quality features without losing the best traditions and decrease of its national quality standards. Orientation towards Bologna process should not cause the excessive restructuring of the national education system. The main aim of Bologna process is to create a unified, all-European, strong and competitive education system (first of all, with the American education system), and also expand the possibilities for employment of future professionals. The European Credit Transfer System was implemented in Ukraine in 2005 and is aimed at the development of national school. This system enables transfer of credits from different educational institutions and it expands the access to the European education, leads to the modernization of European education and provides more efficient training of graduating specialists. Therefore, the higher educational institutions of our country constantly take the measures towards improvement of teaching and education process and methods of education using different forms of knowledge control. Having as an objective the control of education results and evaluation of efficiency of study, the objective monitoring of knowledge and skills that provides for the use of its different forms, becomes an integral part of the educational process. The Bologna declaration forms the model of European higher education with consideration of the specific features and traditions of the national educational systems. One of the key criteria of the implementation efficiency of credit-modular system of educational process organization is advancement of higher professional education quality. However, the implementation of surgical educational programs has a series of problematic issues. In the article, we describe the inclusion of the Ukrainian medical education into Bologna process, the stages of creation of Bologna educational system in Ukraine. We introduce the conceptual peculiarities of higher medical education reforms within the context of medical reforms in Ukraine. We have shown the credit-modular system of educational process organization in the Ukrainian education and demonstrated the advantages of credit transfer system in medical education. We also have added to the concept of higher medical school reforms in the context of medical reforms in Ukraine.

The article substantiates the need to develop strategic approaches to the modernization of the higher education system in Ukraine in accordance with the current needs of social development and European integration processes. The analysis of the formation of educational policy in Ukraine and its strategic priorities throughout the entire period of independence is carried out. Revealed the strengthening of the orientation of the higher education system (HES) in Ukraine in the European educational space, noted certain changes in the modernization of higher education. However, they do not provide sustainable progressive changes in the higher education system, solving existing problems and overcoming the lag of the domestic system of higher education from developed countries. An examination of the draft Strategy for the Development of Higher Education for 2021-2031 was carried out, an assessment of its positive parameters was made, and a number of omissions and shortcomings were identified that would limit its role in the significant modernization of Ukrainian higher education in accordance with the needs of human capital development and in modern processes of transformation of society, can hinder modernization of the highest school and its European integration vector of development. They are associated with a weak conceptual substantiation of the leading role of higher education in modern social progress; lack of adequate attention of the Strategy to the main stakeholders of the HES, primarily to employers who form the labor market for graduates of higher educational institutions, as well as to consumers of educational services – students and the population in general. The prepared draft Strategy does not sufficiently take into account the wide possibilities of digitalization for the development of universities, the priority need to develop students’ skills of innovation and entrepreneurship, the need for a greater orientation of the activities of higher education institutions to the needs of regional development.

The article is devoted to the consideration of the main challenges and problems that were identified in the higher education system of Ukraine in the conditions of a full-scale war. It has been proven that before the war, the main challenges and problems in the higher education system were mainly focused in the field of industry. It was established that in the pre-pandemic period, problems and challenges in the higher education system were mainly caused by the need to implement the tasks of the European integration course of the Ukrainian state and enter the single European educational space. With the beginning of quarantine restrictions and the legal regime of martial law, the problems and challenges facing the higher education system of Ukraine changed the location of internal origin to an externally determined space. It is substantiated that since 2020, the challenges and problems that were formed as systemic and those that had an extra-branch origin became dominant for the system of higher education in Ukraine. Institutions of higher education of Ukraine in such conditions built the trajectory of their functioning and development taking into account, first of all, the requirements of safety, accessibility and quality of the educational process, development of human capital in the system of higher education. It was determined that the transformation of the higher education system in the conditions of war has content and time characteristics. A list of priority directions for the development of the higher education system in Ukraine for the near future has been created. A conclusion was made about the need for the consolidation of the Ukrainian educational community and international partners for the implementation of innovative approaches in the development of the higher education system in Ukraine in the post-war period.

The replacing of world civilization and Ukrainian society in particular played a significant role in the evolution of medical education in Ukraine. The system of higher education simultaneously affects the development of the future generation of doctors and is a remarkable social institution. That is why, the role of the system of higher medical education in difficult periods of the state’s development and proposed ways to innovate and optimize the scientific potential of students of higher medical education was analyzed.
 The aim of the study. The aim of the study is to analyze the current trends of transformational changes in the field of medical education and to propose ways to optimize the scientific potential of students of higher medical education.
 Objects and methods of the study include the system of medical education at the Higher Secondary School of the PSMU in various periods of its formation and development.
 Results and discussion. During our research, an analysis of modern trends in the development of medical education in Ukraine by studying well-known literary data was performed. The basis of own research is: quantitative analysis and synthesis (for the study of the higher education system of Ukraine); comparative analysis (to highlight the peculiarities of the functioning of the system of higher medical education in the conditions of modern challenges).
 Studying the system of higher education of Ukraine, it pays attention to the fact that the entire period of its development was accompanied by certain tests that prompted the transfer of the educational process to online format. At the same time, it should be noted that students are most often concerned with the following problems: poor or no Internet 30.2% of respondents; complex emotional state and psychological problems of higher education applicants 25.9; absence or lack of gadgets for learning 12.1%; a higher education student does not accept distance learning 10% of respondents; 9.2% of respondents noted that they were able to join distance learning partially or only for a certain period. Most of the higher education seekers who pointed out this problem lived in the Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Luhansk regions before the war; absence or partial distance learning happened to 2.5% of respondents, who for a certain period, namely at the beginning of the war, should not have been able to join the training at all; 2.0% faced the problem of studying during their stay abroad.
 Analyzing the transformational changes that have occurred in our state, one can safely say that the social and medical conditions in which the society found itself have caused many problems in the field of medical education. There is an urgent need to solve the strategy, content, structure, methods of teaching, education and formation of views.

Introduction. In the current context of the transformation of the higher education system in Ukraine, taking into account the state-level declared aspiration to join the European Union, aligning the national legal framework with European standards becomes particularly important. Experts point to a number of problems and contradictions in the legal regulation of physical education within Ukraine’s higher education system The aim of the article is to identify common and distinctive features in approaches to the legal regulation of physical education in the higher education systems of Ukraine and selected European Union countries (using Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic as examples. Materials and мethods. The study employed theoretical research methods: analysis of scientific and methodological literature, general scientific methods of theoretical cognition (induction, deduction, analysis and synthesis, comparison). The source base consisted of legal documents effective in Ukraine, the European Union (EU), and selected EU member states. Results. The legal framework regulating physical education in Ukraine’s higher education system comprises several legislative acts adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, documents issued by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. The approaches and logic of forming the legal framework regulating the higher education system in Ukraine generally coincide with the practices of EU countries. The main difference is the existence of several documents containing recommendations for organizing higher education that apply across the entire EU territory. Conclusions. Ukrainian legislation contains certain contradictions in regulating physical education in higher education. Some documents clearly regulate physical education as a mandatory component of educational programs, while others leave the right to higher education institutions to independently determine the forms of physical education implementation. In EU countries (Poland, Germany, Czech Republic), mandatory physical education classes in higher education institutions are not stipulated; the mechanism for implementing such classes is determined by the autonomy of the institutions themselves

This chapter provides the details of the political context of Ukraine and presents the details of the findings of the research conducted on the higher education actors involved in the Bologna reform in Ukraine before 2014. Four clusters of actors are discussed: the central governing bodies, their consultants, civil sector organisations and higher education institutions. All of these clusters existed before Bologna. Prior to Bologna, the relationships among them were defined by the central cluster. It fully controlled the work of higher education institutions and the consultative bodies, and it avoided the influence of the civil sector. Such power relations among these actors have been partially preserved in Bologna and have been argued by the civil sector to hinder the Europeanisation of higher education. However, the strict centralisation in the higher education system of Ukraine started to weaken, albeit marginally, during Bologna. The cooperation between the civil sector and the central governing bodies strengthened, largely, due to the partnership developed between the Ministry and the National TEMPUS/ERASMUS Plus Office. The latter actor, in its turn, has been slightly diluting the strict control of the Ministry over higher education policy-making. A gradually burgeoning and increasing cooperation among different actors, facilitated primarily by the civil sector, seems to have been accompanied by a slowly decreasing centralisation in the relationships among higher education actors in Bologna.

The article is aimed at substantiating the theoretical and practical principles of modernization of higher education in Ukraine in the context of the development of digital economy on the example of economic specialties. For its implementation, the main tasks are set as follows: determine the demand for «digital» personnel of the economic specialty in Ukraine and the main wishes of employers; explore the possibility of studying under the educational program «Digital Economics» in higher education institutions of Ukraine; identify the main trends in the adaptation of the higher education system in Ukraine to the requirements of digitalization. The article assesses the readiness of higher education institutions in Ukraine for the challenges of the digital economy (on the example of economic specialties). The main requirements of employers for the professional qualities of employees in the labor market in the digital economy are determined, including cross-sector specialization and multilingualism. The main directions of popular professions of the future are characterized: big data and advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, robotics. The monitoring of educational proposals of higher education institutions, in particular economic specialties, for compliance with the development of digitalization in Ukraine was carried out. The novel educational programs specializing in «Digital Economics» are identified. It is defined that upon admission in 2021, applicants had the opportunity to submit documents to 14 higher education institutions, despite the fact that in 2018 there were only 2 such institutions. It is researched that the number of applications of entrants to such educational programs is growing every year, as well as the number of students enrolled in the chosen educational program. As a result, it is concluded that in order to identify the compliance of the higher education system in Ukraine with the challenges of the digital economy, additional developments are needed, in particular, regarding a detailed analysis of the content of educational programs (their professional competencies and the list of components of vocational training), including the specialization «Digital Economics», which will become the direction of further research.

This article examines the impact of digital transformation on economic processes in the higher education system in Ukraine. The process of digital transformation in higher education in Ukraine, which has been significantly intensified by the full-scale war, is accompanied by a number of economic effects that confirm its potential as a tool for stabilization and development in the context of the socio-economic crisis. The study aims to analyze and structure research trends related to the digital transformation of the higher education system in Ukraine using a bibliometric approach and to show the impact of their application on the economy. For this purpose, we used the VOSviewer software to assess academic publications in the Scopus database, allowing us to study and visualize the relationships between key terms in this field. Additionally, Google Trends was used to assess the popularity of key search queries, providing insights into public interest in the topic. The analysis is based on scientific publications indexed in Scopus. The analysis highlights a significant increase in scientific interest in the digital transformation of economic processes in universities in recent years worldwide. The research shows that Ukraine is a leader in the number of publications dedicated to digital technologies for education in wartime economies. The challenges faced by universities, starting from the COVID-19 pandemic and followed by the war, have significantly contributed to this increase in academic attention to improving the efficiency of higher education delivery. The data obtained indicates that, despite the current situation, Ukraine continues to implement digital transformation mechanisms at both the state and private institutional levels. This study lays the groundwork for future research on the digital transformation of education during crises and post-war economic recovery.

The article deals with determining ways to improve the system of public administration of educational institutions in order to ensure competitiveness. Were analysed the main trends in the regulatory support for the activities of higher education institutions in the article, as a result of which the basic innovations of the Law of Ukraine “On Higher Education”, which became the basis for the formation of systems of academic mobility, virtue and autonomy, were defined. The main problems of development of higher education system in Ukraine were identified, consisting of imperfect management mechanisms, inefficient system of financing and incomplete implementation of processes of academic autonomy defined by law. The main approaches to reforming the higher education system in Ukraine were analysed, as a result of which the role of the public administration system in the regulation and coordination of higher education institutions were determined. Today this system is not flexible and therefore cannot be effective. The creation of approaches to the rating of higher education institutions determines the format of redistribution of funds in the system of state financing of education. This system will motivate educational institutions to improve the quality of the educational process, research activities, academic mobility, partnerships, the level of material and technical resources of the educational process, the level of employment of graduates in the specialty and the like. These indicators provide motivation to improve the performance of higher education institutions, but do not fully solve the problem of lack of funding, in particular for innovation. Low pay for faculty members also affects the educational process negatively. Thus, the article gives recommendations on the possibility of increasing the effectiveness of the system of state management of universities, which consists in creating opportunities to attract financial resources of partners of higher educational institutions, cooperation of education and business, simplification of the system of development of grants and financial cooperation with foreign educational institutions

In the article the author reveals the dominant trends in the development of the higher education system in Ukraine during the 90s of the XX century: deideologization and demilitarization in the conditions of partial deindustrialization of the country, transition from elite to mass higher education, humanization of the educational process and humanization of the professional training structure, the emergence of the private sector and diversification of funding sources. In the article the author reveals the dominant trends in the development of the higher education system in Ukraine during the 90s of the XX century: deideologization and demilitarization in the conditions of partial deindustrialization of the country, transition from elite to mass higher education, humanization of the educational process and humanization of the professional training structure, the emergence of the private sector and diversification of funding sources.

The issue of developing and optimising critical thinking among students is on the agenda when developing programmes for the improvement of higher education systems. This aspect has become particularly relevant in the European space, in particular in Germany, which is explained by the priority of educating students and the development of such important skills as rapid response to a problem, its effective solution, as well as cognitive flexibility of the individual in critical situations. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the experience of Germany in the context of using tools to optimise the development of students’ critical thinking, as well as to create recommendations for the development of the higher education system in Ukraine based on the results obtained. To achieve this purpose, the following scientific methods and tools were used in the course of the research: functional and dialectical approaches, method of logical analysis, synthesis, comparative analysis, analysis of scientific literature. The paper provides an overview of the general principles and scientific positions regarding the interpretation of the concept of “critical thinking”, its nature and features. A comprehensive analysis of the tools and mechanisms that are actively used at this stage in German universities for the development of critical thinking among students is provided. Positive aspects from the experience of this country are identified and a strategy for their implementation in the activities of Ukrainian universities is formed. The prospects for further research are the implementation of a comparative analysis of modern mechanisms for optimising the process of students’ critical thinking development used in universities of the United States of America and France. The practical significance of the study is conditioned upon the priority of its use in higher education reform in Ukraine and is also an important element in the development of methodological materials for teachers

Permanent reforms of the education system in Ukraine are conducting without high-quality strategic planning and scientific justification. It leads to stochastic processes, actualizes challenges and threats to the competitiveness of the high education industry, and the issue of many universities survival precisely of the number, permanence and groundlessness of the proposed reforms. In 2022 the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine announced another reform of higher education, which don't take into account the important role of culture as the pilar and basis for the Sustainable Development Goals achieving, and the requirements of the strategic documents of Ukraine's development. Special risks are created for higher art education, as a result of its marginalization, neglect of the importance of this education for social development and the peculiarities of the artistic higher education training. There is established that certain proposals for modern reforms, in particular regarding the list of fields of education and training, the standardization of scientific work accounting, do not meet the actual needs of society, and therefore the implementation of these changes is inappropriate. For the authorities an economy of budget funds is the main criterion for the effectiveness of reforms, and obviously these reforms do not supply the better provision of public goods por the people. Also, the priorities of the implemented reform are determined by the requirements of the loan agreement with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the main target indicators of which are unknown to the public. At the same time, the proposed changes do not contain proper scientific justifications and assessments of the expected impact on the state's ability to perform social functions, in particular to guarantee higher education as a component of the state's security chain. And most importantly, its do not contain indicators of humanitarian development as a pillars of reforms. The need to revise the goal-setting procedure and approaches to the planning and implementation of the higher education reforms is proven. The important criteria for the effectiveness of reforms should be the systematic consideration of the important role of culture in social development and the human dimension of performance indicators, as well as the positioning of higher art education as a value-shaping component of the education system.

This paper contextualizes the development of Ukrainian higher education in broad historical, geopolitical, and socio-economic realities. The author argues that these realities determine the current Ukrainian education trajectory. Higher education reforms in Ukraine are analyzed in the context of two major influences: European regionalization and inherited Soviet structures in education. Particular focus is placed on the Bologna Process, the European education initiative to standardize higher education in Europe. Soviet organizational and administrative principles are outlined and analyzed as the second influence that determines Ukraine’s unique educational developments.
 A brief overview of higher education reforms in Ukraine notes the distinctive changes in the legal framework between 1996 and 2014. Ukrainian education reforms within this period are viewed from the perspective of the Bologna Process, a series of voluntarily agreements between European countries to establish a common European Higher Education Area to retain the regions’ influence and competitiveness. Contesting voices regarding the European-associated education reforms range from unquestionable support (Europhiliac) to absolute rejection (Europhobic). Such contesting voices reflect the Ukrainian society’s broader understanding of its complex educational challenges. The author argues that public concerns about reforms in Ukraine initiated with the Bologna Process, originate in the nature of the reforms, the Ukrainian educational system and its foundational principles, public stereotyping of the reforms, and the unstable political situation in the country.

The development of policy actors involved in the Bologna reform in Ukraine

The article highlights the competence-based approach in education as the guiding one for understanding the peculiarities of the professional activity performed by a specialist within the education field. The authors present the results of the analysis related to the scientific fund covering the issues of pedagogue’s professional competence, the pedagogue being treated as a representative of higher education – a higher school / tertiary teacher. The originality of the higher school teacher’s professional activity is highlighted. The authors have presented the results of the analysis on the specifics of the development of the higher education system in Ukraine; on the advantages and disadvantages of the national experience regarding students’ training at the “Master” educational level; the connection between specific indicators of changes in higher school and the structure and types of teachers’-researchers’ professional competences have been established. Analysing the modernization stages of the higher education system in Ukraine, the scholars consider the compliance of the current regulatory framework with the requirements of society to the higher school teachers. Within the system of professional competences, the authors especially emphasize the higher school teacher’s facilitation competence – an integrative dynamic construct, conditioned by his / her personal profile as a subject of an activity which reflects his / her ability to take into account each student’s individual features, a variable algorithm for his / her moving along the educational path. Keywords: facilitation, competence, higher school teacher, higher education system, master.