1. Introduction

Higher education is the most important key factor 
of the long-term influence on the development of 
economy of a country and regions, on the improve-
ment of population’s living standards, belonging to 
the state in the modern society. Thus, it may be indi-
cated that higher education in certain regions and 
countries in general becomes one of the main core 
factors of the economic growth.

Scientific and methodological grounds for this 
research are the theory and practice works in the 
area of the state administration by such scien-
tists as D.  Dzvinchuk, G.  Dmytrenko, V.  Zhuravs-
ki, S.  Nikolaenko, and others (Дзвінчук, 2003; 
Дмитренко, 1996; Журавський, 2003; Ніколаєнко, 
2005). In the context of the range of problems of 
the state administration of higher education, inter-
esting are the scientific and practical approaches 

Journal of Geography, Politics and Society

2016, 6(3), 64–69
DOI 10.4467/24512249JG.16.020.5807

The develoPmenT of UkraInIan edUcaTIon In The conTexT 
of TranSformaTIon of The STaTe and reGIonal admInISTraTIon

Alina Leonidivna Pomaza-Ponomarenko (1), Nadija Mykolaivna Karpeko (2)

(1) Scientific Department of Problems on State Security of Educational-Scientific-Production Center, National University of Civil Protection of Ukraine, Lermon-
tovska 28, Kharkiv, Ukraine,
e-mail: dergupr@nuczu.edu.ua
(2) Scientific Department of Problems on State Security of Educational-Scientific-Production Center, National University of Civil Protection of Ukraine, Lermon-
tovska 28, Kharkiv, Ukraine,
e-mail: a_pp_l@i.ua

citation
Pomaza-Ponomarenko A.L., Karpenko N.M., 2016, The development of Ukrainian education in the context of transformation of 
the state administration and ensuring of regional development, Journal of Geography, Politics and Society, 6(3), 64–69.

abstract
The essence of the Ukrainian regional system of higher education as an object of the state administration under the conditions 
of transformation is defined. The direction and concept of the state policy of education regionalization are determined. The 
fundamentals of this concept are as follows: the purpose of its development is the formation of the system of the state admin-
istration of higher education that will provide the mobilization of internal resources of the higher educational institutions and 
regions for the development of higher education and the optimization of distribution of nationwide resources directed at the 
educational area based on the principles of efficiency and justice. Thus, it is important to solving of problem of financing of the 
branch of higher education.

key words
Regional systems of Ukraine, object of state management, academic mobility, the concept of public administration in Ukraine, 
development trends.



The development of Ukrainian education in the context of transformation of the state and regional administration 65

proposed by O. Zhabenko, V. Oharenko, N. Safonova, 
V. Sychenko, and others (Zhabenko, 2003; Огаренко, 
2005; Сафонова, 2004; Сиченко, 2010). Despite the 
wide scope of scientific groundwork in the field of 
the state administration of higher education, there 
are many problems requiring further development. 
There is still no complex research of the reformation 
of legal and regulatory, organizational and function-
al components of the state administration of edu-
cation in higher educational institutions of the І-ІІ 
accreditation levels in Ukraine. This research should 
interpret theoretically the modern tendencies and 
the principles of proper governance, and take into 
account the development process of the state ad-
ministration in the educational field.

Paper objective is to determine the essence and 
the development of regional systems of higher edu-
cation as an object of the state administration under 
the present conditions. It is also necessary to dem-
onstrate the direction and the concept of the state 
administration of higher education in regions under 
the present conditions providing persistence, stabi-
lization and further stable development of higher 
educational institutions in accordance with the main 
policy of a modern state.

2. Paper main body

The role of education from the regional point of view 
is known. Social sciences consider the educational 
institutions as the main channel of social circulation. 
The modern post-industrial societies are character-
ized with the intensive inter-branch and internation-
al flow of physical and human capital, the quick ap-
pearance of new branches, their rapid development 
and further reduction.

The systematic structural reconstruction of the 
state administration leads to radical changes in the 
social environment. However, this question has not 
been studied comprehensively yet, requiring more 
attention. It is one of rather substantially studied 
and solved question in the foreign literature. As 
for the recently adopted official documents defin-
ing the prospects of the development of Ukrainian 
education, they determine the range of problems 
concerning the improvement of the economy of 
education and the development of scientific prob-
lems, the most important of which include the issue 
of the improvement of the state administration of 
higher education, the development of the statistics 
of education, the increase of internal and external 
efficiency of education at the central, regional and 
institutional levels (Ніколаєнко, 2005).

Special attention is paid to the question of the 
increase of competitiveness of Ukrainian education, 
the stimulation of integration processes in it, the es-
tablishment of the new types of educational institu-
tions, scientific schools and centres in regions, the 
regional forecasting of the needs of society in cer-
tain skills and knowledge types, and the satisfaction 
of social demand of the population for the higher 
continuous education. The urgency of the problem 
of development and implementation of the new 
mechanism of higher education financing increases, 
as well as the training and retraining of personnel 
for the system of higher education, and the devel-
opment of the system of public organizations in 
education. During the cycle of labour activity, a per-
son needs to change occupation, place of work and 
even place of residence several times. Under these 
conditions, the labour force reproduction stipulates 
the increase of their professional mobility (Указ 
Президента України…, 2002; Сафонова, 2004).

The professional mobility as a component of 
global tendencies makes the range of demands of 
academic mobility, which would become the most 
important qualitative characteristics of the modern 
educational systems. Thus, the academic mobil-
ity originates from the time of establishment of the 
first European universities. At that time, students 
and teachers traditionally spent the majority of time 
travelling, changing one higher educational institu-
tion into another. The academic contacts depended 
on political and economic conditions, and the flow 
of students from the other countries depended on 
the level of activity of interstate relations (Zhabenko, 
2003).

The modern academic mobility is connected 
with the individual movement of students and high-
er-education teaching personnel. It is based on the 
interacademic contacts based on the creation of 
the single system of education and the integration 
of educational institutions, the intensification of re-
gional and national opportunities for the formation 
and the implementation of the policy in the area 
of education corresponding to the new conditions. 
The development of international trade, the inten-
sification of division of labour and specialization 
turn the migration of labour force to the most im-
portant conditions and lead to the establishment of 
the international labour markets. For example, the 
integration of European countries leads to the crea-
tion of the single “European home” that transforms 
the educational system into a sort of a “single Euro-
pean university” (Закон України “Про освіту”, 1991; 
Огаренко, 2005).

The state level of the administration of educa-
tion provides for the maintenance of the single 



66  Alina Leonidivna Pomaza-Ponomarenko, Nadija Mykolaivna Karpeko

educational space guaranteeing the high quality of 
education favouring the development of academic 
mobility. However, it is possible to determine the 
optimum scope and the sufficient diversity of edu-
cational services provided by local institutions of the 
system of higher education only at the regional level 
taking into account the state of economy, the struc-
tures of population employment in one or another 
region.

The concept of the state administration of higher 
education in Ukraine, under the conditions of de-
centralization and adoption of the European level, 
favours the increase of the quality of educational 
services provided by the regional systems to popu-
lation, enterprises and establishments of these ter-
ritories as the main institutions of society, the core 
factors of economic and social development of the 
state (Дмитренко, 1996; Сиченко, 2010). The funda-
mentals of this concept are as follows: the purpose 
of its development is the formation of the system of 
the state administration of higher education that will 
provide the mobilization of internal resources of the 
higher educational institutions and regions for the 
development of higher education and the optimiza-
tion of distribution of nationwide resources directed 
at the educational area based on the principles of ef-
ficiency and justice.

The result of implementation of this concept 
must be the solution of the following tasks (Панов 
(ed.), 2006a, 2006b; Дзвінчук, 2004):
a) the creation of conditions for stabilization of 

functioning and further development of higher 
education in a region;

b) the intensification of focus of the development of 
higher educational institutions on the additional 
internal sources of self-financing and the means 
of regions;

c) the creation of conditions for the optimum dis-
tribution of higher education among the groups 
of population with different levels of income, 
educational tastes, academic abilities, among the 
different regions based on the principles of effi-
ciency and justice;

d) the increase of attractiveness of the programmes 
of academic and professional education for the 
residents of these regions based on the principle 
of the necessary diversity of specialities and spe-
cializations taking into account the specific na-
ture of local labour markets and social demand 
of population;

e) the development of legal, informational, statisti-
cal base in the system of higher education;

f ) the formation of the effective system of higher 
education guaranteeing the maximum employ-

ment, the increase of incomes of population, and 
the cultural advance;

g) the building of confidence in regional education, 
the provision of economic safety of regions and 
the equal accessibility for population to the qual-
itative higher education.

The reformation of the state agencies of administra-
tion of higher education at the national and regional 
levels is directed at satisfaction of the interests of 
population, employers, and territories. This is the 
main purpose of the state at the moment.

The scales, the sizes and the tasks of the mod-
ern higher education result in the establishment 
of institutions of such complexity and size that the 
exclusively centralized administration becomes im-
possible. Thus, the necessity appears to delegate the 
part of powers from the central authorities to the re-
gional ones, which is implemented in the policy of 
regionalization of higher education. This provides 
for the improvement of the centralized administra-
tion of higher educational institutions and the in-
crease of the role of regional governments in higher 
school control. The questions of higher education 
must be governed by both state and regional levels 
of administration (Дзвінчук, 2003).

Education plays the very important role in the 
creation of fundamental conditions for population 
prosperity that is proved by the world practice of 
social and economic researches. The significant in-
fluence is made by the system of higher education 
in the current period of joining the post-industrial 
society. This stipulates the exigency to search for 
the optimum ways of fastest renewal of the educa-
tional system at the regional level, to help it out of 
a crisis, to provide not only the survival, but also the 
expected development of the system in accordance 
with the global tendencies stipulated by the general 
processes of the society development (Журавський, 
2003).

The process of regionalization of education in-
cludes the focus on the needs of an individual im-
plemented in this area, the formation of single edu-
cational space of a region, and the consideration of 
specific regional peculiarities with the determination 
of areas and directions of activity of all the structural 
elements of the educational system.

The issue of the reformation of the state adminis-
tration of higher education in Ukraine maintain insuf-
ficiently elaborated. It is connected with the difficul-
ty of suggestion under the conditions of the political 
and economic instability of the long-term strategy 
of the state administration. However, in connection 
with the gradual intensification of the process of the 
country development, the organizational and legal 
registration of the administrative structures, and the 



The development of Ukrainian education in the context of transformation of the state and regional administration 67

improvement of the content of powers of the bod-
ies of the state executive authorities and the bod-
ies of local self-government, the real conditions for 
the transition of the system of administration to the 
qualitatively new level begin to appear.

It should be emphasized that during the next 
years, the role of the state in the administration of 
higher education in Ukraine will be significantly 
higher than it is in the European countries. Consid-
ering this, it should be the state represented by its 
authorities to understand the necessity to reform 
the state administration of higher education and 
to make it conform to the modern conditions. All 
the responsibility for the beginning and the course 
of the reform of the state administration of higher 
education in Ukraine must be taken by the President 
and the Government of Ukraine, and the Ministry of 
Education and Science of Ukraine. If the executive 
authorities are not confident concerning the im-
plementation of certain changes, then in order the 
models of the reformation of the state administra-
tion of higher education to work it is necessary to 
carry out an experiment to answer the majority, if 
not all the questions.

We are convinced that the reformation of the 
state administration of higher education must be im-
plemented by means of the performance of specific 
actions. Thus, there is the need in the development, 
the approval and the implementation of the Con-
cept of the reformation of the state administration of 
higher education in Ukraine. This makes it possible 
to accumulate the resources of all state authorities 
as much as possible, to ensure the consolidation of 
efforts, the coordination and the interaction during 
the determination of the effective ways of urgent 
problems solution.

One of the main problems requiring the urgent 
solution is the problem of financing of the branch of 
higher education. In comparison with the European 
countries, Ukraine is among the top ten countries 
with the highest level of the investment of the state 
funds into higher educational institutions. How-
ever, their “shortage” indicates the inefficiency of 
the existing model of the state financing of higher 
education. It is known that the European countries 
formed several models of higher education financ-
ing – financing according to expenditures, financing 
according to results, contractual financing of educa-
tion, government order based on capitation, etc.

It is important to ensure transparency of the pro-
cedure of higher school financing. Interesting in this 
context is the model of higher school financing in 
France. It allows to step aside from the allocation of 
state funds to higher education based on quantita-
tive indices, and to go over to the qualitative criteria 

of the development – the participation in scientific 
researches, the quality of education, the training of 
skilled personnel. The clear definition of the criteria 
of financing of the higher educational institutions 
shall favour their efficient operation and shall cre-
ate the effective system of distribution of state funds 
among higher educational institutions regardless of 
the conjuncture, political factors.

Now, the state administration of higher education 
in Ukraine is the difficult vertical hierarchic structure, 
the distinctive feature of which is a high level of ad-
ministration centralization. However, the European 
experience shows that the central level of adminis-
tration shall establish the regulatory framework, and 
the regional level of administration shall ensure its 
execution. Together, they must create the conditions 
for the implementation of these standards.

Thus, considering the European experience, it is 
possible to carry out the optimization of the func-
tional component of the authorities of the state ad-
ministration of higher education in Ukraine in the di-
rection of the increase of the role of the community, 
and the introduction of the principle of publicity. The 
excessive centralization of the state administration is 
unjustified under the modern conditions, and does 
not allow the system of higher education to trigger 
the ways of self-organization and to find way out of 
crisis independently. That is why it is necessary to 
take certain measures concerning the delegation of 
power. The decentralization of the administration 
of higher education shall potentially provide the 
possibility to better determine the needs of the re-
gional economy in specialists, to meet the needs of 
the population and to get the community involved. 
At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to 
the peculiarities of different regions when using fi-
nancial resources and stimulating interaction at the 
regional and central levels in the field of adminis-
tration of higher education. The Ministry of Educa-
tion and Science of Ukraine must become the body 
of state supervision over higher education, which 
should determine the goal, the priorities, the direc-
tions and the main tasks of the state policy in the 
field of higher education.

The reformation of the state administration 
of higher education must ensure the increase of 
the quality and the reduction of the terms for the 
achievement of results; the transparency, the open-
ness, the reasonableness and the timeliness of the 
solutions of the bodies of state administration; the 
increase of the effectiveness of the interaction be-
tween all levels of authorities and NGOs at the ex-
pense of the clear definition of measures, proce-
dures and criteria for the achievement of results. 



68  Alina Leonidivna Pomaza-Ponomarenko, Nadija Mykolaivna Karpeko

3. conclusions of the research

The success of the development of higher educa-
tion mainly depends on the theoretical analysis and 
the transformational changes in the state adminis-
tration, on the study of the historical experience of 
European countries, on the determination of gen-
eral tendencies and peculiarities in this field. One of 
the peculiarities of the present higher education in 
Ukraine is the state nature of origin and the central-
ized form of administration during the long period 
of time. This leaves its mark on the ways and the 
means of its further development, and, in particular, 
excludes the possibility of decrease of the degree of 
accessibility for population to the state building.

The state represented by state and regional gov-
ernments must be the initiator of the educational re-
forms. The new state policy in the area of higher edu-
cation must be based on the traditions of Ukrainian 
higher school and, at the same time, include the new 
elements of higher school improvement.

The system of higher education consists of the 
higher educational institutions implementing the 
educational programmes, which are located on the 
territory of one or another region and mainly satisfy 
the needs of its population. The tasks of the govern-
ments (both state and regional) in the area of higher 
education must be in the optimum provision of the 
regions with the qualitative education in accordance 
with social standards.

The regional government must support the com-
petition among higher educational institutions by 
way of government procurement of the training 
of highly skilled specialists, the allocation of scien-
tific grants, and the governmental scholarships. The 
state policy of higher education regionalization and 
the modern legislative base must be directed at the 
creation of conditions for stabilization, improvement 
and further development of the regional systems of 
higher education.  At the national level and in re-
gions, the governments together with the admin-
istrations of higher educational institutions must 
develop the concepts and the programmes of edu-
cation development directed at the establishment 
of the new organizational forms in the system of re-
gional higher education and the state mechanism of 
administration of higher educational institutions.

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