QUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL SERVICES FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: DEFINITION OF THE CONCEPT FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ACTIVITY-FUNCTIONAL APPROACH

Abstract

The concept of «educational service for professional development» does not have a clear scientific and normative definition, which complicates the procedure for assessing the quality of such educational services. The problem of scientific and terminological uncertainty of the concept of «quality of educational services for professional development» results in normative inconsistencies in the educational activities of providers and recipients of services - teachers. That is why the need to solve this problem at the scientific and theoretical level and the implementation of research results in the texts of normative acts, which governing this area of activity, and in the procedures of entities’ educational processes that provide professional development. The article, based on a comprehensive view of the nature of educational services and using methods of comparison, analysis, synthesis and generalization, defines the content of this concept and characterizes the main parameters for assessing the quality of professional development. It is indicated that from the standpoint of activity-functional approach educational service for professional development of a teacher is defined by law, educational program and / or contract, the activities of the authorized representative of the executor to provide intangible benefits, which has a certain value at the request of the recipient (individual or legal entity), to meet the professional needs identified by professional development’s plan of the institution or the needs of a particular customer, which are formalized in the expected learning outcomes. The educational service is based on the invariant requirements of the state educational policy and the variability of the choice of topics aimed at the development of professional competencies, in accordance with the results of the pedagogical worker's self-analysis agreed by the pedagogical council.