Abstract
Object: Higher education is one of the main factors of economic competitiveness in the global economy, which is increasingly based on knowledge. The imperative of countries to improve employment skills requires high-quality teaching in educational institutions. National and transnational debates, such as the Bologna Process, direct government regulation or incentives, competition between private and public educational institutions -all this encourages educational institutions to include issues of teaching quality in their agenda. Moreover, national quality assurance agencies encourage thinking on this topic, even if their influence is contradictory.
Methods: As higher education systems grow and diversify, society is increasingly concerned about the quality of programs. Much attention is paid to public assessments and international rankings of higher education institutions. However, in these comparisons, as a rule, excessive attention is paid to scientific research, and their results are used as a measure of the value of an educational institution. If these processes do not affect the quality of teaching, it is partly because measuring the quality of teaching is a difficult task.
Results: Institutions can implement evaluation mechanisms to identify and promote best teaching practices. The environment of higher education institutions can contribute to improving the quality of teaching through various means. For example, national policies implemented by government agencies or recommendations issued by quality assurance agencies are likely to help university leaders implement a quality culture encompassing teaching.
Conclusions: The study will analyze teaching quality indicators that consider effective initiatives in the field of quality of interaction of higher education institutions with the city administration and contribute to reflection; based on the above, in turn, it can help other educational institutions to improve the quality of teaching, thereby improving the process of educational quality management of the faculty of economics. The study will analyze the role of lecturers, faculty, central university and the state. The factors of long-term improvement of the quality of teaching for the teaching staff, decision-making authorities, and educational institutions have also been identified. The purpose of the study is to contribute to the analysis of the interaction of the university with the city administration and employers in the process of quality management of the faculty of economics.
Effective cooperation between universities and the city administration, as well as employers, is a necessary condition for satisfying the requirements of the development of the system of higher education and labor relations in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The stimulation of the provided interaction implies the coordination of actions of all interested parties, based on this, the existence of mutual understanding between structural organizations and their desire to develop a joint vision of the situation.
According to the majority of employers, one of the urgent problems is the personnel issue faced by the city administration and enterprises. In importance, this problem is second only to the other two, which directly determine the economic situation of the enterprise - sales of products and investments. Based on the data on the conducted research in solving this problem, it is said that the weight of the personnel problem remains for the city administration and organizations of various types of ownership and does not change depending on their economic situation.
*Corresponding author’s e-mail: bekebayevam90@mail.ru
The urgency of the problem is increasing due to the financial crisis, which not only imposes new requirements and challenges the education system, but also radically changes the priorities of the personnel policy of employers and the city administration.
The regional labor market, being a share of the state labor market, can simultaneously be considered as a relatively independent labor-intensive socio-economic system. The labor market as a system of economic mechanisms, norms and institutions that ensure the reproduction of labor and its use is an integral part of the market system.
For a detailed study of the issue of interaction between universities, city administration and employers, the Karaganda Buketov University was chosen, which on the one hand has a number of features in the issue of interaction, on the other hand reflects the situation in the whole country for industrial regions in the development of educational programs in all areas of training.
After a thorough study of the perception of the «quality management process of the faculty of econom- ics» in the works of several economists and scientists, we learned some important concepts. Education quality management is a systematically implemented system of strategic and operational actions aimed at ensuring, improving, monitoring and evaluating the quality of education.
The role of the education quality management process in the interaction of the university with the city administration and employers:
Management concept - the manager is concerned not so much with the progress as with the results of education. According to the results of education, they judge the performance of managerial activities. Depending on this, it is the preservation of the management system itself and the receipt of arguments for continuing work in the field of educational political policy. The logic of the conceptual idea: the quality of education must comply with management guidelines and tasks.
Information and cybernetic concept - constant and systematic obtaining of information about the real quality of education and achieving a correlation with the attitudes that are determined by the management concept. The concept of quality and the concept as such don’t exist here; the information does only a servile function for the existing management system.
A lecturer is a specific «producer» of the quality of education. It is necessary to know the quality criteria every time in order to qualify the methods of its effective achievement and intermediate control. If there are none, that is, they are not transferred to the management concept, aspects are worked out intuitively. The scope of applicability of this concept begins with a specific lesson, a holistic course, a subject and ends with the scale of the entire educational institution, depending on what a certain lecturer is responsible for in a particular educational technology. The assessment of quality is immediately subjective and uncertain, in fact, which generates a lot of conflict situations.
Instructive and controlling concept - the main task of the inspectorate is not so much to manage as to assess the quality, on the basis of which it is possible to carry out licensing, accreditation, standardization procedures, etc. The given position is subordinated to the managerial one, as a result of this, its effectiveness depends primarily on how fully and meaningfully the main idea of management is conveyed.
Scientific position - development of opinions, scientifically based criteria and methodological recommendations for all other positions based on theoretical analysis.
The second typology of concepts follows from the framework of the individualities of the education management system and the type of relationships that develop in the entire system completely. Based on the above, the main customer for the quality of education is determined. There are hierarchical and democratic types of relations in the education system. In a hierarchical system, quality management is necessary to preserve the system of official subordination and the successful formalization of the functionalization of the education process. In a democratic system, the diversity of views on quality, on the provision of a plurality of educational applications and personal choice of educational trajectory is logical and justified. The main customer and quality supervisor is the consumer of educational services. The government, educational institution, etc. are considered only as performers and producers of quality (OECD, 2014).
The formation of education quality management at the modern turn is associated with the formation of various approaches to solving quality problems. The quality management of education, formed in response to the impartial need of humanity to receive high-quality education, is determined nowadays for a sufficient quality of life.
The complexity and variety of difficulties of the quality of educational services require a fundamentally new approach to its solution. Moreover, (Biggs, J., 2001) it is necessary to realize that «the quality of education is a versatile factor that includes at least four major blocks of indicators: accessibility, quality of material and financial resources, high-quality human resources and the results of the activities of educational organi- zations».
The definition of quality teaching depends on the meaning of «quality», a multi-layered and complex word. As (Biggs, J., 2001) points out, «quality» can be defined as an outcome, a property, oral process. Therefore it is hardly surprising that the phrase «quality teaching» has been given several definitions. The review of literature showed that there are many ways to define quality in higher education because definitions of quality are «stakeholder relative» (Harvey, L. et al., 1992). (Tam, M., 2001) also found that all stakeholders held their own view of what quality in education means to them. Some scholars define quality in higher education as the process of quality enhancement. (Hau, H., 1996) argues that quality in higher education, and quality teaching in particular, springs from a never-ending process of reduction and elimination of defects. (Argyris, C. et al., 1974) believe that quality is driven by the inquest: «Are we doing things right?» and by the complementary question «Are we doing the right things?».
Definitions of quality in higher education as an outcome, a property or a process are not necessarily in conflict, and can potentially be used by higher education institutions as complementary. As a result, the review does not adopt one definition of quality teaching and opts instead to look into how the institutions have defined quality per se.
The literature review explores factors influencing quality teaching such as the national context, institutional structure, student profile, lecturer training and use of information technology. It highlights the difficulty of reaching a clear definition of quality teaching. The term quality teaching appears indefinable a priori because it is evolving, and dependent on national context. Moreover the sources cited in the review are mainly from English-speaking countries, limiting the scope for applying the findings to other cultural contexts. As a consequence of these constraints the study has focused on the different meaning given by each participating institution to the concept of quality teaching.
An important point emerging from the review of literature is that some concepts have remained at the research level: this need to be addressed.
Finally, the literature finds that quality assurance systems have little impact on quality teaching, because quality assurance systems struggle to comprehensively evaluate what is taught.
The theory of automatic regulation of socio-economic processes; pragmatic approach; monitoring as a means of increasing the effectiveness of strategic planning for the development of higher education institutions; system analysis; factor analysis; sociological research methods. The case research method was chosen as a methodology for conducting a mixed analysis, which allows taking into account the training of professionals in an industrially oriented region. The choice of methods is determined by the objectives and objectives of the study, the specifics of educational programs and the nature of the problems studied. The methods used allow performing a problem-situation analysis on the interaction of employers, city administration and universities in order to form models and substantiate management decisions that improve the interaction process.
Although the institutions have diverse relationships with their national governments, most consider themselves autonomous. The institutions ranked their level of autonomy on six different elements (Kovac, A. et al., 2009): designing programmes, implementing programmes, assessing the outcomes of programmes,recruiting teachers, discretion on salaries and bonuses for teachers, and assessing teachers.
In higher education systems, there are substantial reforms aimed at encouraging institutions to be more responsive to the needs of society and the economy. This has been accompanied by a reappraisal of the purposes of higher education and the drawing up of new government strategies. Although institutions now have more room to maneuver for institutions, they also have clearer accountability to society. The tertiary sector is expected to contribute to equity, ensure quality and operate efficiently.
The institutions describe themselves as very autonomous on the assessment of the outcomes of programmes and on recruitingteachers. The level of autonomy allows many institutions toacceptstudents at all degree levels. There is also a partial selection (for some levels of study) in 18% of the institutions.
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Bycontrast, institutions enjoyless autonomy in discretion on salaries and bonuses for teachers because of government regulations and agreements with teachers unions.
Degree structure (undergraduate, graduate, doctorate). On average, 60% of the institution’s student body is at the undergraduate level and 25% at the graduate level (of whichonly 9% are atthe doctorate level).
According to the structure of their student body, the institutions can be described as undergraduate-, graduate- or doctorate- oriented (more than 60% undergraduate students, more than 30% master students, more than 15% doctoral students).For example, with 99% undergraduate students, Karaganda Buketov University is typically an undergraduate-oriented institution. On the other side, Institute of Education– Karaganda Buketov University (96% postgraduate students) offers exclusively master and doctoral degrees.
Institutions included in this profile offered mostly programmers’ in the field of business, administration and economics with a high level of autonomy in the selection of all students. All of them host fewer than 22 000 students.
Business and economics institutions tend to develop teaching and learning policies, especially at the teacher's level: support for pedagogy, support for teaching and learning environment, and continuing education for teachers.
Postgraduate institutions concentrate upon initiatives at the institutional level, with a strong commitment to quality assurance policies and some involvement in the teaching and learning environment.
They are less engaged in programme management, compared to colleges or universities of applied sciences which concentrate on the undergraduate level.
Multidisciplinary institutions with a majority of undergraduates have a limited involvement in policies regarding teaching and learning, although they develop other institution-wide strategies often bound to their identity and field of excellence.
Thisbreakdownisbased on the number of students in each field of study:the institutions have been sortedbythedisciplinaryarea inwhichmoststudentsareinvolved. Whenno fieldofstudyhostsmore than 30% of the student body, the institution is considered multidisciplinary (Figure 1).
Because of the diversity of their programmers’, 40% of the institutions are considered multidisciplinary. This applies mostly to the most populated institutions (more than 30 000 students). None of the multidisciplinary institutions host fewer than 10 000 students. Explanations are the following:
- Business-management: institutions with more than 40% of students studying in this field.
- Technological: institutions with more than 50% of students in engineering and vocational courses.
- Health and Science: institutions with more than 40% of students in basic science or health.
- Humanities: institutions with more than 40% of students studying social sciences, philosophy, history, literature, linguistics or education.
- Economy and Law: institutions with more than 55% of students in economics or law.
Five profiles have been highlighted. They have been defined according to four criteria: size of institution, level of study, major discipline(s) offered, and level of autonomy and selection of the students.
Medium-sized undergraduate and technological and vocational institutions develop a wide range of initiatives to increase quality using all kinds of tools at all levels (institution, department, programme, teachers and students). The small-sized undergraduate institutions are the only ones of the sample which explicitly implement support to student learning
The concept of «education quality management process» is complex and open to various definitions and interpretations. Therefore, this review adopted a pragmatic approach based on how the quality management process of education affects the interaction of universities, city administration and employers.
Changes in student profiles and learning requirements over the past decades have had a decisive impact on the content of curricula and teaching methods. Therefore, the quality of teaching should be considered dynamically, as a function of contextual changes in the higher education environment, as well as in interaction with employers and the state system, such as the internationalization of research and additional tasks that education needs to perform (innovation, civic and regional development), the training of skilled labor to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
The introduction of an effective institutional policy in the field of teaching quality involves the use of synergy between two groups of factors:
1. Factors external to institutions, at the national and in many cases international levels (for example, the Bologna Process in Europe): they work as intermediaries or catalysts, creating a common climate conducive to recognizing the quality of teaching as a priority.
2.Internal institutional factors: The institutional context (for example, the development of an internal quality culture, student participation in academic affairs) and specific circumstances (for example, the appointment of a new head) are likely to affect the pace of development of the quality of the teaching initiative. In different educational institutions, there are overlapping layers (educational institution, faculties, disciplines, programs) that are more or less open to initiatives in the field of quality teaching and whose influence changes over time.
The institutions most advanced in initiatives to improve the quality of teaching have clearly defined the role and tasks of the teacher in the learning process, and they know how to explain their belief that the quality of teaching is an important area for development. Neither the size nor the specifics of the educational institution are a serious obstacle to the development of institutional policy as long as the participation of the management of the faculty of economics is clear and permanent, and sufficient financial resources and appropriate funds are allocated to ensure the quality of teaching on a long-term basis.
The commitment of all stakeholders of the university, that is, the city administration and employers, and above all the academic community, is crucial for the success of any policy to improve the quality of teaching. Participation enhances the dedication and motivation of graduates when it begins with the very concept of action or policy, in which their educational function is put forward and clearly stated.
The implementation of the teaching quality policy also depends on the ability of the educational institution to find a balance between the technical aspects of quality support and the fundamental issues raised. It is obvious that the goals related to the quality of teaching cannot be reduced, and they cannot be achieved through simple technical improvements or expansion of existing mechanisms (Benneworth, 2010). Conversely, these fundamental questions lose relevance if they are not supported by concrete actions that the academic community considers useful. All this is a matter of balance, specially adapted to the culture and way of work of each institution.
The higher education sector is still trying to understand the causal relationship between involvement in teaching and the quality of learning outcomes. The reason for this lies in the difference in approaches between the teacher's work and educational activities, which makes it difficult to measure any causal relationship between input data and results, although such links undoubtedly exist. Institutions tend to track their initiatives mainly through performance indicators and resources, while learning outcomes are determined by numerous factors depending on the context (e.g. characteristics of students and teachers), the environment in which learning takes place (e.g. learning process, pedagogy, training, services) and the previous experience of students. Studying the relationship between inputs, processes and outcomes of higher education requires innovative and in-depth assessment methods and tools.
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