HIGHER EDUCATION
4’2021

Abstract. Problems of developing the Ukrainian PhD standards of higher education are analyzed. The legal framework, which is the basis for their development, requires improvement and elimination of internal contradictions in legal documents and contradictions between different documents. Article 10 of the Law of Ukraine “On Higher Education” needs to be clarified. First of all, this concerns the requirement of Paragraph 1 of Part 3 to define in the standards the number of ECTS credits required for the appropriate degree of higher education. But according to Part 6 of Article 5, the third level educational program must consist of educational and scientific components. Only for the educational component, the Law provides a credit dimension. Therefore, for PhD programs, this requirement of the Law cannot be met. The most problematic of the normative documents is the Procedure for training applicants for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Science in higher education and scientific institutions. In some norms, it uses outdated or indefinite terminology, contradicts the Law of Ukraine “On Higher Education”, underestimates the requirements for competencies/learning outcomes established by the National Qualifications Framework. In particular, the requirements of the Procedure for dividing the educational component into separate blocks aimed at achieving certain competencies are incorrect. These competencies are formed not by studying individual components, but by fulfilling the entire educational program, including its scientific component. Some of the requirements of the Procedure would be more relevant in bachelor’s or master’s standards. Some discussion issues are also analyzed. In particular, these concern the description of the subject area, formulation of competencies and learning outcomes, requirements for certification of applicants, recognizing the outcomes of previous learning, an acceptable degree of unification of requirements for different specialties, etc.
Keywords: standard of higher education, doctor of philosophy, volume of the educational program, subject area, competencies, learning outcomes.
https://doi.org/10.32987/2617-8532-2021-4-46-59

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