A guarantor in the quality management system of educational programs: a case of Ukrainian universities

Abstract

Development of the system of ensuring quality in higher education of Ukraine grounded the creation of such management subject as a guarantor of the educational program. However, a formal understanding of the role and uncertainty of the guarantor’s status in the contemporary area of managing higher education institutions became the widespread consequence of those innovations. Considering the stated above, various models of managing the quality of educational programs with the help of the guarantor have been developed in the research, and conditions for efficient application of such models in Ukrainian universities have been grounded. The research is based on the application of the strategic analysis method GAP for identifying issues and features of organizing management in systems of internal quality assurance in universities, and methods of modeling and graphical analysis method for creating alternative management systems in educational programs with and without such professional educational-scientific structural subdivisions as departments. As a result, the developed models include the rational organization of management of educational programs under the conditions of centralized and decentralized systems of internal educational quality assurance provision. For instance, it could create favorable conditions for decreasing bureaucracy and repetition of functions in the management system of universities and lead to the realization of the individual potential of guarantors as managers-experts in educational programs. Acknowledgment To the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance for the possibility to take part in accreditation expertise and consulting evaluation of educational programs in universities of Ukraine. The research was carried out also within the context of the tasks of Ukrainian-American international project “Program of professional development of them managerial staff in Ukrainian universities,” which was initiated by the investment company “Rayter Inc.” (The USA). In addition, we are thankful to the Czech Development Cooperation support, which allowed this scientific cooperation to start (through projects: “Strengthening scientific capacities and cooperation of Ukrainian universities in AgriSciences” and “Interuniversity cooperation as a tool to improve the quality of selected universities in Ukraine”).