Leadership Competences: Implications for the Higher Education Quality Management Curriculum at the Regional Level

Abstract

Bologna process made the National Qualifications Frameworks compatible with the European Qualifications Framework three-cycle education and learning outcomes predominant to curriculum development (approval and reviewing) for new academic programmes in higher education in Russia. One of the previous initiatives on expressing learning outcomes was the TUNING Educational Structures in Europe project, which recommended writing learning outcomes in terms of competences. Since then Europe has been using learning outcomes to describe the educational programmes, while this notion is sometimes misunderstood and misinterpreted by Russian higher educational institutions. However, the more recent draft of National (Russian) Qualifications Framework employs a triangular set of descriptors, categorized as competences, skills and knowledge. This paper scrutinizes and discusses the changing definition of the concept of leadership competences and changes in categorizing learning outcomes in Russia and their probable impact on curriculum development in quality management at the regional level. The authors assume that any alterations in the definition of leadership competences and in categorizing the learning outcomes should be considered in the process of developing (reviewing and approving) of new curricula so that they may better associate with the appropriate levels of the National (Russian) Qualifications Framework.