Abstract Improving the quality of the educational process, bringing it to modern requirements is a complex task, the solution of which requires a systematic approach from higher education institutions and the development of a strategy to improve the quality of service and efficiency of the institution. Formalization and modeling of the management business process allows for effective management decisions. When analyzing large amounts of information to effectively solve the problem of data structuring, as well as the problem of forming new knowledge, it is proposed to use an ontological approach based on the use of associative rules. The ontological analysis of modeling business processes of higher education institutions and analysis of the structure, functions and information flows of organization and management of educational activities based on the structural approach is carried out. Improving the quality of the educational process, bringing it to modern requirements is a complex task, the solution of which requires a systematic approach from higher education institutions and the development of a strategy to improve the quality of service and efficiency of the institution. The use of an ontological model of interaction between subjects and objects of the system makes it possible to assess the level of system efficiency and build a simulation model of management, which will allow predicting the emergence of critical business processes that may lead to a decrease in the efficiency of decision-making and disruptions in the functioning of higher education institutions and their departments.