Baltic Journal of Economic Studies (Oct 2019)
THE SYSTEMATIZATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROBLEMS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Abstract
Economic, social, demographic, ideological, and political instability in Ukraine has become the cause of a whole range of socio-economic problems in higher education. It requires studying their composition, interdependence, and impact on higher education. Nowadays different ranges of socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine are being discussed in the literature. Despite a large number of publications, the systematization of socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine is not given due attention. For a better idea of their composition, interdependence, and focus, it is useful to systematize them and develop their catalogue. The purpose of the study is to identify approaches to systematization and classification of socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine. Methodology. The following theoretical methods of socio-economic phenomena and processes learning as abstract-logical (methods of induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, analogy, generalization, comparison, system-structural, abstraction), content analysis, empirical research (description and comparison), systematization of scientific knowledge were used in research. To systematize socio-economic problems in higher education, their catalogue was developed, on the basis of which these problems were directly systematized and classified. Results. The major socio-economic problems and contradictions in higher education in Ukraine, as well as in European countries and the United States, were determined and analysed in the given study. The analysis of the recent studies and publications on socioeconomic problems in higher education showed that there are currently no proposals for the formation of their single system. On the basis of research, the catalogue containing forty-one most important socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine has been developed. For the visual representation of the system of problems and causal relationships between them, a conceptual map has been proposed. For that, the problems that are directly related to the purpose of the study are selected from the catalogue. As an example, a conceptual map of socio-economic problems caused by inadequate funding for higher education, as well as problems linked with the formation and maintaining its principal resource – academic staff – was developed. To classify the socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine, a 3×3 matrix is proposed, in which problems in higher education are grouped depending on the place of their manifestation and the place of solution. The places of manifestation and places of the solution are defined as: a sphere of higher education, other spheres, a sphere of higher education, and other spheres simultaneously. It allows us to identify the problems, solution to which society puts on higher education only, and those that require joint efforts. Distribution of problems by the determined features identifies their targeting and the degree of responsibility of the higher education system for their solution. The practical relevance of the given study is to provide further research on the state of higher education and problems of its functioning. The approaches proposed to the systematization and classification of socio-economic problems in higher education in Ukraine can be applied to other countries as well.
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