In article ways of maintenance of quality of higher education in Belarus are considered. It is shown that they are the result of interaction of two tendencies. The first is inheritance and development of traditions of the Soviet education system. Belarus system tries to conserve fundamentality and scientific character of the contents of education, to keep in basis the orientation on Five years' term of training. The second one is use the consequences of world processes, such as mass character of higher education, its practical orienta-tion, Influence of market relations on education, etc.
All establishments of education of an education system of Belarus are subjected to the state control.
Irrespective of subordination and patterns of ownership of establishments of education the state con-trol is carried out as:
– Self-checking which is carried out by establishments as the procedure which is carried out for an internal estimation of quality of education under the program worked out by establishment education or as a necessary stage of the certification which are carried out in the order, developed by department of quality assurance of education;
– Inspections of establishments spent by department of quality assurance of education and other competent bodies;
– Inspections by department of quality assurance of education of committees, departments of educa-tion of local executive and administrative bodies.
Monitoring of quality of education at a level of universities is carried out in the form of the current and final certification of students for the certain period of training (a semester, a rate, all period of training). Oral, written and practical forms are used. Forms of certification of students are determined by educational standards of specialities.
For the first time standards of specialties of higher education in republic have been developed in 1998-1999. In 2008 standards of new generation (361 specialities) have been created. In standards results of modernization of system of the higher school are reflected: two-level preparation of the graduate (the special-ist, the master); the differentiated terms of preparation of the graduate at the first level (from 4 till 6 years of training on a speciality); competent approach to formation of model of the specialist; increasing of controlled independent work of students in total amount training hours; orientation to innovative techniques and tech-nologies of teaching.
The problem which is necessary to solve is to update of the training courses content from scientific and practical point of view. It is difficult because this step may lead to including more information that stu-dent is able to get. In this case it is important to emphasize that methodology of education is opposite to methodology of development of knowledge in science.
In a science, as it is known, speaking computer language, change of operational system occurs from time to time. It allows to state information of past periods simply and briefly. There is reconsideration and re-structuring of all volume of the scientific information from the point of view of a new scientific paradigm.
Changes of scientific knowledge in the content of training courses also should be nonlinear both on time and on intensity of the response to changes occurring in a science. During normal (extensive) develop-ment of a science the new knowledge can quite take root into educational process in an additive mode. Intro-duction of the knowledge which has arisen during change of a scientific paradigm demands radical transfor-mation of forms and methods of training and even phase transition of all education system. Differently, the content and methodology of education, following by the changes in a science and practice, should vary peri-odically to provide quality of preparation of specialists according to modern social and culture realities.
Key words: education, quality, the content of education, methodology.
MAINTENANCE OF QUALITY OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN REPUBLIC BELARUS: ORGANIZATIONAL, METHODOLOGICAL AND CONTENT ASPECTS