BASIC SCIENTIFIC APPROACHES TO DEFINITION OF THE TERM “QUALITY OF EDUCATION” FROM THE PEDAGOGICAL POINT OF VIEW

The article focuses on the problem of definition of the term “quality of education”, which is considered in the context of current state of research activities in Philosophy, Social Science, Psychology and Pedagogics. Basic scientific approaches and issue characteristics of the educational quality content are discussed in this article. It is shown here, that the «quality of education» is complex and polysemic meaning and currently there isn’t any conformal idea about its issue and content. But from the pedagogical point of view, the structure and the content of this meaning are indicated in this work. Analyzing the category «quality of education» the article authors notice that there are different aspects of its meaning in scientific researches: they emphasize on its objective and informative aspects, outline its staging point and conditions, that influence on education quality; point out individual result as a major component of education. This result is a combination of socially inducted factors: knowledge level, skills, abilities, valuable attitude to the World, and the other factors inherent for graduate person. Theoretical analysis of the basic scientific approaches to specification of the content of the meaning “quality of education” make it possible to draw a conclusion that this meaning has hierarchic structure, moreover the application level of this term is wide ranging. We can say about “quality of education” at the international level: about quality of national educational system; about quality of educational institution and about university student qualification. It is noticed that in the context of research, done in this article, the most important is to use the meaning “quality of education” towards the learners and for practical purpose; to understand this meaning as ”qualitative changes” in educational process and learning culture that can be identified as knowledge, skills and values quality improvement, that acquired by the learners at any stage of educational process. In this research work the author suggests the definition of the meaning “quality of education” in the context of educational process in modern higher education institution.