FORMATION OF THE ECONOMIC COMPETENCY OF THE HEAD OF AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION WITHIN ADVANCED TRAINING SYSTEM

The worldwide shift to the market economy has radically
changed the key guidelines within the professional education
goals, including the training process of future managers. Today
the professional activity performed by the head of an educational
institution (HEI) is inalienable from the economic issues. The
modernization of the education system presupposes the creation
of the educational services market, altering the status and
broadening the economic self-sufficiency of educational
institutions, which leads to certain increase in rectors’ and
directors’ responsibility level and the need to improve their
professional competency. The modern society is awaiting the
appearance of a new manager who is eager and bound to provide
the effectiveness of an educational institution within the market
reality.
We define the essence of the concept of “the HEI’s professional
competency” by clarifying its content through a distinction with
similar notions: “competency” («компетентность») and
“competence” («компетенция»). Analysis of numerous studies
dedicated to the nature of competency in specifying the
theoretical essence of the above-mentioned notions leads us to the
conclusion that they are closely interrelated. In its most general
form, the concept of “competency” means the characteristic of a
person (competent, knowledgeable, enjoying full professional
rights), while the concept of “competence” describes what the
person has (duties, range of issues, abilities, knowledge and
skills). According to A.V. Khutorskoy and I.A. Zimnyaya, we
distinguish “competency” and “competence” as common and
individual, as “alienated, pre-set requirements” and a personal
quality (characteristics); as “potential – urgent, cognitive –
personal”, respectively.
The theoretical analysis of the economic aspect of the HEI’s
professional activity served as the basis for singling out the new
professional quality, which we defined as the economic
competency. It allows the HEI to successfully complete economic
tasks of different complexity levels. Being an individual’s
qualitative characteristic, the HEI’s economic competency is
determined by the nature of his/her professional activity and is a
unity of theoretical (economic knowledge), practical (economic
experience), motivational readiness and ability to carry out this
activity, which is embodied in material, socio-economic and
personally significant product – sustainable functioning of the
educational institution.
The following criteria of the economic competency were singled
out: the assimilation of economic and legal knowledge
(knowledge-based) – awareness of concepts, terms, definitions
that form the basis of the chosen profession; mastering relevant
skills (activity-based) – analyzing and designing real economic
situations, choosing ways to solve economic problems, work with
legal texts, predict the future; the formation level of valueoriented economic activity (motivational) – the motives of
professional activity, the mental acceptance of the market
economy, the consistency of economic and social goals, the
concentration on achieving a high level of the economic
competency; formation of personal qualities (personalityfocused) – understanding the economic competency as one of the
leading professional values, adequate self-assessment of one’s
abilities. The mentioned criteria indicate the complexity of the
process of forming the economic competency within the system
of the HEI’s advanced training.
To determine the degree of the economic competency formation
in the educational process of the advanced training system, we
identified four levels of the HEI’s economic competency
formation: insufficient, basic, advanced and leadership. Each
previous level determines the next and is included in its
composition. The insufficient level was manifested in the HEI’s
inability to solve most of the standard economic tasks. The basic
level characterized the HEI’s ability to solve standard economic
tasks at the reproductive level. The advanced level was associated
with successful fulfillment of standard and non-standard tasks.
The leadership level corresponds to the HEI’s ability to
creatively solve economic problems, to foresee the emergence of
economic problems, to make preemptive economic decisions;
ensure a high level of competitiveness of the educational
institution. In real practice a manager’s level was determined by
the nature of economic tasks that he/she can solve without
assistance.
Keywords: economic competency, educational institution,
advanced training system