Pedagogical principles in the activity of state service for education quality of Ukraine
Based on the analysis of educational and regulatory documents, the main pedagogical principles of the State Service for Education Quality of Ukraine (SSEQU) are summarized: a) basic pedagogical principles of SSEQU’s activity, which are defined by the legislator as basic principles of state educational policy (people orientedness; primacy of the law; ensuring the quality of education and equal access to education; humanism; democracy; unity of teaching, upbringing and development, etc.); b) principles that determine the legal sphere of the SSEQU’s activity (institutional separation of control functions and functions ensuring the activities of educational institutions; transparency and publicity of management decisions; responsibility and accountability of education authorities and educational institutions to society; public administration; public partnership etc); c) pedagogical principles that guide and structurally organize SSEQU’s activities (universal design and reasonable adaptation; scientific nature of education; diversity of education; integrity and continuity of education; integration with the labor market; freedom of choosing the types, forms and pace of education, educational program, educational institution; academic integrity; academic freedom, etc. Empirical data analysis based on the educational process participants’ views on the factors, which comprise educational quality, revealed that the interviewees valued most the level of qualification, experience, knowledge and skills of their teachers, educational and methodological support, the use of new technologies and innovations in teaching for achieving quality education. Interaction and cooperation between education stakeholders was identified as important by teachers and students, and less important – by parents. Interviews with students - prospective educational experts revealed that they valued the sequence of communication skills, knowledge and skills of expert activity, experience and knowledge of pedagogical activities. Keywords: quality of education; SSEQ of Ukraine; state system of monitoring the quality of education; educational expert, audit of educational institutions.