ISSN 0798 1015

Vol. 39 (# 21) Year 2018. Page 10

Organisational economic mechanism of managing the growth of higher education services quality

Mecanismo económico organizacional para gestionar el crecimiento de la calidad de los servicios de educación superior

Marina Georgievna SERGEEVA 1; Nadezhda Nikolayevna BEDENKO 2; Tatyana Yuryevna TSIBIZOVA 3; Lyudmila Zhalalovna KARAVANOVA 4; Mohammad Sarwar MOHAMMAD ANWAR 5; Tatiana Gennadyevna STANCHULIAK 6

Received: 07/02/2018 • Approved: 05/03/2018

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methodology of the research

3. Results of the research

4. Discussion

5. Conclusion

Acknowledgements

References

1. Introduction

Market relations in Russia have transformed its classical educational paradigm, which implies a complex of basic ideas, representations and theses concerning the functioning of the educational system and the creation of necessary conditions for its steady development. This caused the necessity to correct the directions and contents in the activity of educational institutions and the processes of controlling them. The decline in the quality of specialists as the country’s strategic resource as well as the strict system of the governmental regulations over the educational sector, which is distinctly over-centralised, do not facilitate the formation of an effective system of knowledge management, so the educational system management obviously needs enhancing.

The research has shown that higher education is not comprised in Russia’s regional and municipal systems of educational quality management. It has been found out that external evaluation of the higher education quality is supported by internal monitoring, which is based on principles of voluntary nature and different models. The analysis of the latter has shown that in spite of their similar conceptual apparatus, adaptation to the peculiarities of an educational institution activity and orientation on its better performance, the use of a single model greatly reduces possibilities of a certain educational institution for a number of reasons. These include: constraints of a particular model; lack of generilised evaluating criteria; inability to compare the performance of different educational institutions; insignificance of the economic constituent, etc. (Bedenko & Sergeeva 2014).

The necessity to solve the pressing issues in the Russian economics, which were reported by President V.V. Putin, as well as the increase of the human resources role as a basic factor of the country’s economic development set a number of prior short-term tasks to the educational system. The most important of them is to develop a system to evaluate the education quality, which will be based on the upgrade and the improvement of education management establishments. Moreover, independence of evaluative procedures has to be provided as well (Bedenko & Sergeeva 2012).

The new paradigm for managing the system of higher education in the Russian Federation based on quality control is being implemented in an ambiguous situation. This situation is characterized by the following features: reduction in the education expenditure share in the federal budget; decline in the number of applicants due to demographic issues; popularization of higher education (i.e. over the last 40 years the number of students has become 2,6 times bigger, with a certain decrease of this index since 2005); insufficient level of funding the educational system notwithstanding increased public investments; significant differentiation of budgetary allocations on higher education in the regional subjects of the Russian Federation (7-10 times); the concentration of higher educational institutions in the country’s central regions (41,6% of the total number of students), etc. The area of problems is exacerbated by a noticeable differentiation of opinions regarding the application of the term “service” in education. Since the system of higher school in the Russian Federation is engaged in market relations, it has become the main factor to form the notion “higher education services”. These services possess use value and exchange value. “Quality” is that economic category which enables to compare and evaluate similar use values. In spite of the measures undertaken on the federal level, higher education services quality is criticized by ultimate consumers as well as by the society, government and other parties concerned, which requires (Tsibizova 2016):

– justifying new paradigms of management in the higher school based on the approach which would consider quality. These paradigms should allow eliminating the identified problems and disproportions;

– improving the SEQHES management. This will enable to train competitive graduates in all educational institutions of the Russian Federation, regardless of their location;

– unifying and coalitizing the evaluative procedures on all management levels (national, regional, university internal) based on a unified conceptual methodological platform.

The analysis of the higher education management system in Russia shows the following (Tsibizova & Terekhova 2013):

• the object of co-operative management both for the Russian Federation and its constituent entities has not been determined;
• marked management dysfunctions, i.e. uniting mutually exclusive functions under the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, such as: developing governmental policies in the sphere of higher education; working out a normative legislative base for the system of higher education functioning; monitoring and evaluation of the education quality; fulfilling supervising functions;
• the role and significance of the meso-regulator as a necessary component in any federative country is undeservingly downgraded;
• the principal basis of evaluating the higher education services quality has no normative legislative consolidation, which causes scientific discussion in the given sphere;
• the regulation in the sphere is realized as process management, which matches with quality management in spite of the apparent decentralization of the higher education management system in the Russian Federation.

The above-listed points have determined the expediency of theoretical methodological grounds in order to enhance the SEQHES management. Basically, this includes uniting regional and internal institutional evaluative procedures with active application of qualimetry methods, EFQM model, ISO 9000 standards, BSC management conception and the apparatus of economic mathematic modelling, which corresponds to contemporary integration processes in the sphere of education caused by the Russian Federation signing the Bologna declaration (Lomakina, Korzhuyev & Sergeeva 2014).

The topicality of the research is determined by the development and justification of conceptual theoretical and methodological framework for enhancing the management of higher education services quality on meso- and micro-levels, which allows providing high quality of graduates as the country’s strategic resource.

The results of the research allowed making the following conclusion: a part of controlling and supervising operations which are now performed by the federal government bodies can be passed to the regional level, which will help to acquire higher effectiveness of the higher school management system (Tsibizova 2012).

2. Methodology of the research

While analyzing the process of managing the quality of higher education services, one should first appeal to the initial points of view on the matter and the contents of the notion management. S.A. Optner considered management to be the aim of feedback, which influences the system by changing its existing state (Lisieska 2000). The influence may be of destructive nature, or, vice versa, it may contribute to the development of the system. According to H. Fayol, management should be regarded as a universal process consisting of several mutually exclusive functions such as planning and organization. In turn, by the verb to manage Michael H. Mescon, Michael Albert and Franklin Khedouri meant “to predict and to plan, to organize, to direct, to coordinate and to control” (Brennan, Gocdegebuure, Shan, Westerheijden & Weusthof, 1993; The Bologna process 2020 – The European Higher Education Area in the new Decade, 2009; Wright 1996). David Cleland and William King described management as a process which is oriented to achieving certain goals (Hofmann 2006). R.A. Fatkhutdinov marked that management as a process is the influence of the managing subject on the managed object, which is aimed at reaching certain goals (Dobrzanski, Honysz & Brytan 2006). In the frame of the current research, special attention is to be paid to P.F. Drucker’s point of view, who implied that system management should go in correspondence with its multifold purposes, and the effectiveness of this process is determined, together with other factors, by the balance of organizational purposes (Godzwon 2006; Kloze 2004). Thus, in the scientific community, management is most often regarded as a certain complex of sequential or periodic actions aimed at detecting an organization (or system) life cycle problems, formulating and estimating them, searching for solutions, controlling the process of implementing management decisions, which focus on the system of purposes. This allows considering management to be an activity category, a function and a process, whereas system management implies influencing it with the aim of regulating, keeping its particular specificity, enhancing and developing (Maciag 2005; Method for Quality Improvement of Higher Education). Biological, man-machine, technical, socio-economic, organizational and other systems may be the objects of management (Drucker 1999).

The educational system of higher school presents a variation of a socio-economic system which functions on the scale of: micro-level (educational institution); meso-level (regional educational system); national level (educational system of the Russian Federation); global level (worldwide educational sphere). In reference to the system of education, it is rational to analyze management as a process which is divided into two sub-processes: performance management, which means coordinating efforts aimed at realizing a set target program in a real-time mode; development management, which means working out this target programme and the algorithm of its realization. The conceptual methodological principles of the evaluative procedures in the sphere of higher education quality should match with this educational system purposes. Higher school has always been at the intersection of two purposes: the interests of an individual as an ultimate consumer and the interests of the society, since higher education is one of the country’s strategic resources. As it can be judged from the latest experience, the primary goal has shifted to the consumer, i.e. evaluating the performance of higher educational institutions and higher education quality has been carried out via consumer approach. This cannot be ignored while working out a concept of the system management under the market conditions and in the context of quality management methodology. If this concept is based on the detection of higher education services problems and on system analysis of evaluating the education quality, its implementation will allow creating a methodological platform for increasing the effectiveness and progress of the educational system management on micro- and meso-levels. The platform will create the necessary and the most important condition for ensuring the required level of graduates’quality (Lomakina & Sergeeva 2015b).

The conceptual theoretical and methodological developments of enhancing management in the sphere of higher education services, which were presented in the research, are based on written works by Russian and foreign scientists. A significant contribution to the theory of management was made by P. Drucker, E. Mayo, M. Mescon, D. Norton, S. Optner, F. Taylor, H. Fayol and others. The study of management systems and the effectiveness of management activity was undertaken by such scientists as I.Z. Aronov, G.V. Golikova, J.V. Sheina, V.P. Melnikov, V.I. Mukhin, R.A. Fakhutdinov, etc. The matters of enhancing the organization and service management, including those in higher school, which create premises for further improvement of the educational system performance as well as the problems of quality management systems, were considered in the works by V.V. Azarieva, S.V. Barabanova, A.P. Belyaeva, A.N. Belyaeva, O.I. Voronin, O.A. Gorlenko, V.I. Kruglov, Y.V. Kuznetsov, V.S. Sobolev, S.A. Stepanov, N.A. Seleznyova, A.I. Subetto, V.B. Fraimovitch, D.V. Shopenko, V.V. Yashenko and others. Russian scientists A.G. Bezdudnaya, V.J. Belobragin, V.S. Bogolyubov, E. V. Budrina, Y.S. Vasilev, V.V. Glukhov, G.K. Lapushinskaya, A.M. Novikov, D.A. Novikov, A.I. Subetto, A.M. Hodachek, P.D. Shimko, V.S. Checkalin, V.V. Checkmarev developed the models of system management and formed the methodological procedures to evaluate the quality of higher education services. However, the research has shown the following: in spite of active regionalization processes in the Russian educational area, the matters of managing evaluative procedures in the sphere of higher education services quality on meso- and micro-levels have not found a proper reflection in the scientific area. This results in the reduction of educational quality guaranty and lack of its uniformity on the whole territory of the Russian Federation. Consequently, there is a need to work out and to justify conceptual and theoretical methodological bases for enhancing the quality management of higher education services on meso- and micro-levels.

The analysis of foreign practice in the sphere of evaluating the quality of higher education has shown the following (Sergeeva 2011):

evaluation models are divided into two groups: EI (Educational Institutions) accreditation models which are compulsory for use (the initiator is the state); models which evaluate the quality of education and are used voluntarily (the initiator is EI itself);

there are three basic accreditation models in the higher school EIs: accreditation model in the USA, accreditation model in Germany and accreditation model in Australia;

all typical models include a regional management level alongside with the general guidelines of the national authorities;

the EI accreditation is based on the procedures which evaluate the education quality. However, they are of a limited capacity, have no systematic character and are built on different methodological bases, which does not allow comparing the performance of different EIs.

Thus, it can be reported that by now, in the global educational space, there have been accumulated some positive experience of evaluating the quality of education. This leads to the necessity of forming a standard, unified methodological base for evaluation in order to receive comparable results.

3. Results of the research

While studying the process of managing the system of higher school under market conditions, it has been found out that this process is complicated by (Lomakina & Sergeeva 2015a):

the change of the educational paradigm;

the multilevel structure of management (micro-level is represented by EIs, meso-level includes federal subjects of the Russian Federation and macro-level embraces the whole educational system of the Russian Federation);

the subdivision of the management activity into two sub-processes: performance management and development management;

ambiguous tendencies of development in the educational services market, which leads to certain disproportions, etc.

The criterion of quality under the market conditions is the basic one for measuring similar use values. It determines the significance of evaluative procedures in the sphere of higher school services quality as the most important constituent of the whole educational system management (Sergeeva 2015). This was taken into account while working out the concept of the higher school system management under the market conditions within the approach based on quality management (see figure 1).

In correspondence with the presented conception, the analysis of the higher education services market has been carried out and the following tendencies were found out (Korzhuev & Sergeeva 2015):

1. Active globalization processes. Besides its positive influence on the system (e.g. development of education in different countries in accordance with unified standards; creating conditions for students’ and professors’ mobility; transition to international degrees and certificates), globalization also leads to the stratification of the system. In this regard, one part of globalization guarantees fundamental education, while the other one offers narrow specialization.

2. Negative impact of demographic factors. The demographic situation in Russia is characterized by decrease in the number of the population.

3. Popularization of higher education. During the period from 1970 to 2011 the number of students attending establishments of higher professional education has more than doubled (from 2671.7 thousand people to 7049.8 thousand). However, since 2005, there has been a certain reduction of this index. The market of higher education services is still characterized by mass demand and mass supply, which leads to problems and discrepancies, primarily creating the problem of choice between quality and quantity.

4. Commercialization of higher education. In spite of the fact that public investments in higher education have tripled over the last six years, Russian education suffers serious budgetary under-funding. This, in turn, activates the search of new sources to make up for the financial defeciency.

5. Quality management as a new paradigm of the higher school educational system management (A.I. Subetto). One of the prior contemporary directions in Russian higher education development is the building quality management systems based on international standards and improvement models approved by the global community. The main drawback of the higher school quality management is currently the absence of an all-Russian system of evaluating the education quality in the system of higher professional education.

6. Regionalization of higher education requires the educational systems within the federal subjects of the Russian Federation to be refocused in order to meet the needs and requirements of regional job markets, local population and business community. This causes the necessity to optimize and to increase the effectiveness of the educational sphere management.

Figure 1
The concept of studying the managing of higher school system
within the approach based on quality management

Besides, the transition to a three-stage system of higher education (baccalaureate – master course – doctoral candidacy) is realized under the conditions of creating unified requirements to the quality of education and faces increased competition in the education and science.

If the above-listed educational tendencies in the market of higher school services are either not known or ignored, this may lead to certain problems:

• discrepancy between the quality of education and the requirements of the parties involved;
• differentiation of the higher education services quality on the ground of territorial division;
• rise in the number of educational organizations and establishments;
• high rate of graduates per head;
• excessive concentration of HEIs (higher education institutions) in the central regions of the Russian Federation;
• low relevance of educational programmes to the time requirements and job market;
• incomplete demand for graduates;
• disunity of educational establishments within the same region due to their different departmental assignment;
• regional level being not involved in managing the educational system of higher school, etc.

Taking into account the increasing processes of regionalization and higher education alignment regardless of the location, we consider solving the problem of higher education quality to be the key task.

The search of solutions is complicated by two confronting points of view: the centrist conception considers it inexpedient for regional educational areas to develop the system of higher school; the non-centrist conception considers it possible and even compulsory for regional HEIs to become economic centers of resources and innovations.

Paying deficient attention to the marked issues may cause a number of disproportions in the market of educational services (Bedenko & Sergeeva 2012):

• imbalance between the volume and structure of supply in the job market and the real demand for specialists;
• low relevance of the education quality to the time requirements and the parties involved;
• breach of the following combination: science – educational systems – business-community;
• low relevance of the educational problems to the demands of regional economics, etc.

The research has shown that no generally acknowledged method of evaluating the quality of higher education can be found in the global practice. The most widespread is the system of rating educational institutions (the University of Shanghai rating “Shanghai Jiao Tonq University”, the rating of the British “TSL Education Ltd” universities, etc.).However, it has such drawbacks as subjectivity, limited number of members, inability to compare the results, differentiation of terminological vocabulary, etc.

Since Russia has joined the Bologna process, analyzing the EU experience in this sphere has become the object of a particular interest. Here we may see three basic models of quality assurance systems: the quality evaluation system, the accreditation system and the quality audit system. These models have appeared almost at the same time.

As the research key notion we present the authors’ interpretation of the notion “higher education services”, which is viewed as a complex of educational and teaching activities aimed at building the system of cultural and professional competences in correspondence with individual and social demands as well as demands of other parties concerned.

The research has shown what higher education services quality (higher education quality) stands for. Before everything else, it characterizes the level of correspondence between the activities of an educational establishment and the legal norms, standards, market demands and the requirements of the parties concerned. This includes the quality of the educational institution system management; the quality of processes and their resource supply; graduates’ quality; the educational institution potential quality.

The quality of the educational institution management system means the the effectiveness and performance of the higher educational institution management system, whose evaluation can be successfully carried out within the TQM (Total Quality Management) framework.

The quality of processes and their resource supply. The performance and development quality of a modern EI greatly depends on the quality of processes within the HEI, which are generally subdivided into basic, supportive and management processes.

The graduates’ quality means the level of their professional and cultural competences.

Educational institution potential quality is determined via evaluating the educational institution potential, regarding it as an aggregate of its resources and possibilities which determine the expected development characteristics, with different scenarios of environmental changes taken into account. In the given context, the results of the EI activities are expedient to be formed in the following directions: using organizational structural, scientific, human resources, informational methodical, financial, technical, social potentials; graduates’ professional quality; integration in the global educational area and others.

Viewing the system in terms of classical understanding it as a complex of interconnected and complementary elements united by a shared objective, studying higher school as a complex socio-economic system comprising a number of lower-level subsystems, and realising the necessity to study and to measure the interconnection between the elements of the higher education system have enabled to formulate the notion of “organisational economic mechanism of managing the growth of the higher education services quality on meso- and micro-levels”. This notion is interpreted as a complex of methods, tools, results, their interconnection and interaction in the sphere of higher education quality. The listed characteristics allow evaluating and improving the original and the upgraded status of the educational system, active processes and the ultimate result, i.e. graduates’ quality.

The effectiveness of such complex systems as education greatly depends on the applied mechanisms. As a result, the original system acquires a conceptually new condition or is reproduced with new characteristics of a higher quality, which will enable to enhance the ultimate result, i.e. the quality of higher education services.

Since the results of HEI activities are of a high public significance, an evaluative index system should become an integral part of the suggested organizational economic mechanism. This system will allow evaluating all EI activities (both financial and non-financial). The concept of how to form the mechanism of managing the growth of the higher education services quality on the meso- and micro-levels is presented in Figure 2.

The implementation of the organizational economic management mechanism aimed at enhancing the higher education quality on meso- and micro-levels will allow uniting the separated evaluative procedures on the level of ‘higher educational institution – region’ chain. This will create conditions for ensuring the required graduates’ quality on the whole territory of the Russian Federation. Besides, the progressing globalization and integration processes in the global educational area, together with the development of the educational services market, cause the need for quality management on all levels of the system management (international, national, regional, federal subject levels).

In the research, the designed model of the organizational economic management mechanism of enhancing the higher education services quality on meso- and micro-levels is presented in the structural conceptual form and in the graphic spacial form. It is an integral abstract construction which consists of several elements (the evaluative indices system, the principles of its usage in the higher education, tools and methods aimed at solving tasks of enhancing higher education quality, the algorithms of carrying out evaluative procedures, etc.) as well as the levels and directions of their interaction. This construction is designed with the purpose of enhancing higher education services quality management, both on the level of a single HEI and within regional educational systems.

   Higher education services are the object of management. Their evaluation is realized within the two-level model framework (on meso- and micro-levels). The activity algorithm depends on whether the higher education services quality meet the requirements of the parties concerned. If the requirements are satisfied, management decisions are aimed at stabilizing and increasing positive tendencies, implementing innovations in an EI and so on. If the requirements are not fulfilled, there is a need for designing managerial decisions, the realization of which will allow eliminating the detected discrepancies. Moreover, a hypothetic situation which considers an increase in the management system expenses has been simulated. This situation will require either new or complementary sources of funding for educational institutions.

The expected result of implementing the suggested organizational economic mechanism is the following: ensuring graduates’ quality to suit the demands of the parties concerned; creating a complex and independent system to control and evaluate higher education quality services in federal units of the Russian Federation; increasing the effectiveness and the independence of evaluative procedures on meso- and micro-levels; forming a unified methodological base of monitoring processes, optimizing demand and supply in regional job markets, stable higher school development and others.

Figure 2
The concept of the organizational economic mechanism of managing the
growth of the higher education services quality on meso- and micro-levels

4. Discussion

The formulated conceptual theoretical bases for studying higher school management in the framework of the quality management approach has enabled to establish the main tendencies, problems and disproportions in the higher education services market. The core target has been to ensure high graduates’ quality on the whole territory of the Russian Federation. Solving the problems and eliminating the disproportions on the higher education services market can be reached by way of: changing the normative legal base which regulates the educational system in order to specificate the degrees and levels of responsibility in all market subjects; including the meso-level (federal subjects of the Russian Federation) in processes of controlling and evaluating the higher education services quality; forming a unified methodological platform for evaluative procedures, etc.

Considering foreign practice of other federative states (Germany, the USA, Australia, etc.), which have state authorities evaluating the educational quality, proves that management establishments of higher professional education institutions in the Russian Federation possess enough organizational economic premises which can lead to reorganization of these establishments. The regulation of the sphere is realized as process management and corresponds to the quality management approach; the basic system management functions correspond to the classical management theory. However, in order to achieve the expected result of enhancing the quality evaluation system management in the higher school it is necessary to do the following: eliminate the detected management dysfunctions within the system; form organizational economic management mechanism of enhancing the higher education services quality, etc.

The following top priority directions in the higher education sector have been set: integration in the global educational space, increasing competitive ability of EIs; innovative development; enhancing the management system effectiveness; improving particular directions of EIs activities; increasing graduates’ quality, etc.

The diversity of views on the terminological vocabulary in the sphere of higher education quality prevents the problems from being solved. This is explained by the incomplete legal coverage and by gaps in the scientific theoretical methodological developments. This may be eliminated by taking the following actions: unifying the conceptual apparatus in the given sphere with its further embodiment in the legal framework (in the current research we present the authors’ interpretation of the notions “higher education services”, “the quality of higher education services”), accomplishing the formation of an all-Russian system of evaluating the education quality in the system of higher professional education, with the regional management level be included in the system; working out a unified methodological platform for evaluative procedures, both financial and non-financial activity aspects be considered; forming regional systems of evaluating the higher education quality as a new-type integrated innovative management systems, etc. Implementing the presented suggestions will enable to increase the effectiveness of evaluative procedures and ensure comparable results.

With a view to increasing the effectiveness of the higher school management the SEQHES (System of Evaluating the Quality of Higher Education Services) model for meso- and micro-levels has been developed. This model has been produced within the framework of modelling evaluative procedures management enhancement. An integral element of this model is the integrative model of the Internal Quality Management System (IQMS) which is based on the EFQM model as well as on ISO and BSC standards. While forming the SEQHES for meso- and micro-levels, one has to take into account that it is advisory to use either a “strict” or a “mild” regional model depending on the region’s specificity. Special regional state quality assurance agencies for higher education, which provide further guarantees of education quality, can either intensify or democratize the given model. It has been justified that introducing a meso-regulator in the evaluation of higher education services quality may imply both advantages and disadvantages. The expected result can be achieved by sticking to the basic parameters of the models presented in the research. The formation of the IQMS should be realized gradually.

The new meso-regulator in evaluating higher educational services quality will enable: to sort out strategic state functions and controlling activity; to create an independent and efficient controlling system to evaluate the quality of educational services in the Russian Federation’s territorial subjects; to ensure innovative development of regional higher education systems; to become successfully integrated into the global educational community, etc.

Thus, the necessity to develop an organisational economic mechanism of managing the growth of higher education services quality on the meso- and micro-levels has been given grounding, the notion has been given exact interpretation, its concept and model have been worked out. The successful use of the mechanism is dependent on the following conditions: the quality of the educational goal must match the composition law (the theory of organization); the range of tasks, tools and methods; quantity and quality performance indicators should cover the whole activity of an educational establishment and the regional educational system; evaluating procedures must follow the pattern: input quality evaluation, output quality evaluation, process quality evaluation.

Given that BSC was developed for business structures, its implementation in the educational sphere has required some modifying. The “Customers/Market” part was transferred in the “Parties Concerned” part, the “Infrastructure/Personnel” part was excluded, the “Perspective and Development” part was brought in. While working out BSC for higher education usage we tried to avoid the pitfalls of the previous use of this concept for higher education, such as methodological differentiation of BSC usage, lack of connection between strategic goals and real performance, some irrelevance of how development perspectives are reflected in the strategic goals, etc.

The BSC for higher education includes 55 factors and 305 indicators that correlate with benchmarks formed in accordance with laws and regulations as well as higher education market research. Relevant flexibility of its usage is of essential meaning. Its first variant is for basic usage. Variants 2-5 are to be used on the micro-level. Variants 6-8 are meant for the meso-level. All variants have been given justification, each has an individual scheme and methods to calculate ultimate indicators of the aggregate type on the basis of economic mathematical modelling. The IEQE (Integral Evaluation of Quality Education) is the base for all variants.

In order to develop methods to measure principal components of higher education services quality qualimetric tools are suggested, which are a part of the complex system to evaluate the performance of an EI on the meso- and micro-levels, and which are logically integrated in the general evaluating model: methods to evaluate the quality of higher-education teaching personnel, methods to rate students, methods to rate a faculty chair, methods to qualimetrically process universities’ self-conception.

With a view to measuring consequences and results of the SEQHES (the System of Evaluating the Quality of Higher Education Services) management enhancing for meso- and micro-levels, a model of evaluating the maturity of this system has been developed as well as methods to determine: the efficiency of the SEQHES management on meso- and micro-levels, the efficiency of Regional Accreditation Agencies performance, the influence of the higher education services quality on the region’s professional potential.

The measuring process should go in accordance with the following principles: the complex goals principle, the goals measurability principle, the principle of having a mechanism to determine the level of achievements, the principle of achieving synergies, the principle of dual directions harmony, the standardization principle, etc.

 The implementation of the methods to measure consequences and results of the SEQHES management enhancing on meso- and micro-levels is charecterised by the following positive features: processual maximization of meeting the system goals; elimination of the problems concerning the constraints of the existing evaluating procedures in the sphere of higher education and low activity of regional management; training specialists in correspondence with quality and quantity demanded by the concerned parties; the possibility to evaluate regional education authorities activity, steady development of the country’s education system, including the higher school. The research also acknowledges the drawbacks of the authors’ method. However, their influence is considered to be not significant.

The suggested system of evaluating the quality of higher education services rests on the combination of internal and external evaluating procedures, can be applied to the initial and secondary professional education by means of changing or modifying some BSC indexes.

5. Conclusion

The positive international practice of combining national and regional levels in evaluating the quality of higher education services shows that enhancing management in the system of the higher school by means of regional education accreditation bodies and licensing authorities will enable to: minimize potential customer risks; increase reliability of evaluating procedures in education by means of their systematization, comprehensiveness and independence; take the fullest possible account of a region’s education and social economic specificity and development; optimize expenses on accreditation and licensing process, which are connected with remote trips to the country’s regions.

Enhancing management in evaluating procedures in the sphere of higher education on regional levels of the Russian Federation will provide organasational economic conditions for: developing competition on regional levels of education services, increasing regional economic efficiency, solving social tasks and others. This process is aimed at successful fulfilment of education functions, at increasing mobility of students and teaching personnel within the global education space, at the possibility to get international grants and subsides as well as at a positive image, both individual and of the whole system of higher education.

Acknowledgements

The authors of the article want to to express our deep appreciation to Marina Georgiyevna Sergeeva, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences (Grand PhD in Education), Associate Professor of the Department of Social Pedagogy at the Institute of Foreign Languages of Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, the academic supervisor of the projects “Life-long Economic Learning: Didactic Peculiarities of Its Evolution and Development” (2012 – 2014) and “Life-long Economic Learning: Scientific Foundations of Its Development in the System of Professional Education” (2015), for priceless advice and scientific and research experience during the project implementation.

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1. Bauman Moscow State Technical University (National Research University), 105005, Russian Federation, Moscow, 2nd Baumanskaya st., 7; E-mail: sergeeva198262@mail.ru

2. Tver State University, 170100, Russia, Tver, Zhelyabova st. 33. E-mail: bednad@mail.ru

3. Bauman Moscow State Technical University (national research university), 105005, Russian Federation, Moscow, 2nd Baumanskaya st., 7

4. Tver State University, 170100, Russia, Tver, Zhelyabova st. 33, karavanova_l54@mail.ru

5. Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), 117198, Russia, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya st., 6.

6. Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), 117198, Russia, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya st., 6