System of public authority bodies performing public administration functions in the sphere of education

The article defines the system of public authorities performing public administration functions in the field of education, identifies their powers and areas of interaction. It is established that their system consists of: 1) central state authorities that directly or indirectly implement state policy in the field of education - the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and other ministries and departments (for example, the Ministry of Health – medical education, the Ministry of Internal Affairs – legal and law enforcement education); 2) specially formed state authorities that are empowered to ensure the quality of education, exercise state supervision (control) over educational institutions - the State Education Quality Service of Ukraine, the National Agency for Quality Assurance of Higher Education; 3) local executive authorities – local state, including military administrations, which ensure control over compliance with legislation in the field of education at the local level; 4) local governments, in particular executive bodies of regional, district, city, town and village councils – manage secondary and vocational education institutions in the relevant territories, including their financing. The levels of interaction between public authorities that perform public administration functions in the field of education and educational institutions are highlighted. Based on the analysis of the practice of their activities, the main problems of such interaction are identified, which are as follows: duplication of functions and inconsistency of powers; low level of implementation of the decentralization policy - despite the reform, a significant part of the powers remains in the center, and local governments do not always have enough resources or freedom to effectively manage the network of educational institutions, their establishment and financing; insufficient financial independence of educational institutions; the lack of a unified, effective and secure data exchange system between various departments complicates monitoring, planning and decision-making; the lack of an effective system for exchanging knowledge, skills and advanced educational technologies of teaching staff; inadequate coordination of the production and service sectors with educational institutions; the difficulty of introducing a competitive system for distributing financial resources between educational institutions.