MEASURING THE QUALITY OF UNIVERSITIES ACTIVITY BY PARTICIPATION IN THE WORLD (SHANGHAI, TIMES, QS) AND NATIONAL RANKINGS

The natural character of using rankings for assessing the quality of universities activity is grounded. The world ranking experience for building the strategy-2 of the highest excellence higher education development is analysed. The problems facing Ukraine in ranking the higher education institutions are revealed. The proposals on creating the culture of universities ranking in Ukraine are given.

The Impacts of Transportation Sustainability on Higher Education in China

Improving transportation sustainability serves as a means of reducing the perceived and real distance, thereby contributing to the city and higher education development. In this paper, the complexity of transport sustainability is measured via four different dimensions: economy, society, environment and politics. The variables are designed by the four dimensions. The higher education development is measured via the ratio of higher education degree holders, reflecting the skilled work mobility. Over the last 30 years, university students moving to cities for study and work purposes have become an important part of rural–urban transition mobility. However, few studies have explored the impacts of transportation sustainability on higher education development in China. The economic, environmental, social and political dimensions in transportation sustainability can boost China’s higher education attainment in different ways. Against this background, this study, drawing on the panel data and employing the spatial multilevel model, investigated the impacts of transportation sustainability on higher education in China, adding new empirical evidence for China’s higher education development. A panel analysis revealed that the increase in transportation sustainability induces the growth of higher education. Moreover, higher education attainment showed significant spatial dependence at the county level and had significant spatial clustering of county-level higher education attainment across provinces. Furthermore, modeled test results showed that the spatial multilevel model was more suitable for our study than traditional regression models. By identifying transport sustainability variables that have an effect on higher education, this study is the first to uncover the complexity of transportation sustainability and contributes to the latest policy implications for promoting higher education attainment through sustainable transportation.

Academic Diplomacy in Relations between Russia and Pacific Asia countries

Analysts usually consider only strategic, geopolitical, or economic aspects of Russia’s turn to the East. Humanitarian contacts and public diplomacy, including academic diplomacy, remain mainly on the periphery of research on the Asian vector of Russian foreign policy. Despite significant achievements in educational cooperation with non-Western countries during the Soviet period, after the end of the bipolar period, Russia turned to European academic diplomacy. To some extent, it helped Russia move forward in educational and research cooperation with the EU. However, it did not help remove all the stumbling blocks on Russia’s way to internationalize its education and science. Alongside interaction with Asia, which became home to many world-class universities by the 20th and 21st centuries, Russia’s cooperation with Europe has significantly lagged.Nevertheless, as the current situation demonstrates, a more proactive Russian academic and educational diplomacy in Asia is essential for successful economic cooperation and a comprehensive Russian presence in Asia. The paper, therefore, seeks to analyze the dynamics of Russian approaches to educational diplomacy, based on the qualitative and quantitative assessments to scrutinize the main trends of the higher education development in Asia and to define the current state and prospects of Russia’s educational cooperation with Pacific Asia. The paper argues that to be successful, Russia’s turn to the East must have a better-developed educational component, which considers the newest trends of higher education development at the international level. These steps are essential for keeping Russian education competitive and implementing Russian foreign policy in the current circumstances.

Historical and Paradigmatic Development of Educational Processes in Ukraine: Author’s Substantiation

The process of higher education development in Ukraine of the 19 – beginning of 21 century in the unity of academic, professionally oriented, vocationally-technological and humanitarian paradigmatic directions is founded. Major trends and characteristics of each of them are identified. It is proved that modern humanitarian pedagogical paradigm does not cancel the previous paradigms but ensures their implementation on a qualitatively new level. The development of higher education doesn’t occur in terms of leveling and replacement of existing paradigmatic direction by another one, but in the context of their coexistence, and in the condition of each next paradigm dominance on a new stage of society development.

Paradigms in Modern Higher Education Development

The theoretical and methodological analysis of modern educational paradigms is made in the article and axiological vectors of higher education development are distinguished on this basis. Four basic educational paradigms have been identified: cognitive informational (traditional, cognitive), personal (humanistic), competence and cultural (humanitarian). It has been found that, unlike instrument-oriented learning, which provides the translation, reproduction and assimilation of knowledge, skills, technologies (cognitive informational and competence paradigms) and therefore is secondary to the processes of personality development, education should firstly be focused on becoming holistic personality, ensure his organic and unique (personal and cultural paradigms). It has been substantiated that at the theoretical level there is a sharp narrowing of the semantic field of scientific and pedagogical reflection: attention is paid to the production of the amount of knowledge, given social behavior, technologies of activity of the future specialist. Therefore, education in its humanitarian sense suffers first of all and the quality of education is often reduced to the level of acquisition of special knowledge and mastery of professional skills. It has been shown that higher education institutions are more and more inclined to a pragmatic education, training professionals, and functionaries. In this case, information overload blocks the affective-emotional sphere of the individual, prevents adequate, holistic perception of reality, actualization of creative potential. It is determined that the reform of modern education should be based on the idea of the integrity, which actualizes the problem of careful reflexive and methodological support of the modern higher education system and the development of specific humanitarian educational technologies.

Influence of Spatiotemporal Difference and Input of Higher Education on Regional Economy

Scientific expenditure and distribution of higher education drive the sustainable and stable development of regional economy. Currently, China faces an imbalance in the allocation of higher education resources. To solve the problem, it is necessary to study the spatiotemporal difference of higher education development. Therefore, this paper explores how higher education varies in time and space and measures how the spatiotemporal difference and input of higher education affects regional economy. Firstly, the authors divided the influence of spatiotemporal difference and input of higher education on regional economy into four aspects. Next, the spatiotemporal differences of higher education were examined in detail. Based on the four aspects, an equilibrium model was established for regional economic development, and the law of evolution to equilibrium was analyzed. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of the established model.

Increasing Financial Resources for Public Higher Education: International Experiences and Suggestions for Vietnam

Increasing financial resources has been regarded as one of the particular importance of the current higher education development in Vietnam, notably public universities. These groups of higher education institutions are facing challenges as their main sources of funding - state allocation - are declining gradually. In this study, the authors examine the mechanisms employed in other countries across the world to improve financial resources for their higher education institutions. Thus, some implications are withdrawn for public higher education institutions in Vietnam.

Research on Evaluation and Improvement Policy of Higher Education Development Based on TOPSIS-Synthetic Control Method

This article aims at the evaluation and improvement of the development of higher education. First of all, according to the theory and hypothesis, the comprehensive evaluation index system of higher education development level is established. The TOPSIS and the combination weighting method based on goal programming are used to measure the scores of higher education development levels of 19 major countries in the world in the recent 20 years, and the horizontal and vertical comparative analysis is carried out. Then, according to the practical feasibility, Turkey is selected as the target country to propose a higher education development and improvement policy by 2030, and the causal effect of our proposed policy is estimated using the synthetic control method. This study can provide a reference for other countries in the world to improve their higher education level.