Quality of Education and Academic Integrity: the Essence of Concepts and Practical Implementation in the Educational Space of Ukraine

Abstract

Reforming the education system and bringing it in line with leading European practices necessitates the revision of the approaches of educational institutions to ensure the quality of the educational environment, the provision of educational services and more. In the presented research, the authors focus on the critical analysis of the real state of affairs and conceptual-procedural aspects of the implementation of measures aimed at improving the quality of education and introduction of norms of academic integrity into the practice of functioning of educational institutions in Ukraine. Thus, the article reveals and analyzes the content of the main laws and regulations, the rules of which determine the mechanisms for ensuring the quality of education and academic integrity. It has been proved that academic integrity is not only an integral part, but also a criterion for assessing the quality of education. The authors pay attention to the ways of improving the quality of education in the institutions of general secondary, vocational and higher education. As educational institutions must implement the mechanisms to ensure the quality of education and compliance with the standards of academic integrity proposed by legislators, the authors conducted the research to determine the level of effectiveness of their implementation. Within the conducted research, we clarified the problematic issues regarding the compliance of the level of education quality in Ukraine with the leading countries of Europe and the world; assessment of the internal education quality assurance system in the particular institution of higher education; the level of mastery in criteria content, rules and procedures for evaluating students, the activities of pedagogical (academic and pedagogical) employees, managerial activities of managers of educational institutions; the level of mastery in the system and mechanisms aimed at ensuring academic integrity in educational institutions; personal level of compliance with the requirements of academic integrity; places of violations of academic integrity in the own professional activities alongside bringing to academic responsibility persons who violated the norms of academic integrity; the level of participation of the authority of an educational institution in the processes of improving the education quality. Based on the conducted research, it is proved that the system of ensuring the education quality, in particular compliance with the norms of academic integrity in educational institutions of Ukraine, today is not perfect and needs to be brought into line with modern requirements.