International Competitive Disposition of National Higher Education Systems

In this paper, the stratification of national systems of higher education in a dynamic competitive environment, which is one of the ways of deepening the asymmetries of global economic development, is examined. Governments of key innovation countries, responding to global challenges, place considerable emphasis on increasing the competitiveness of national systems of higher education as generator of the competitive advantages of international economic relations, which are denominated in the form of intellectual capital. The evolution of paradigms of higher education, determinants, criteria and indicators of evaluation, methods of classification and research of the competitiveness of higher education systems are investigated to identify the international competitive disposition of national higher education systems. The stratification of countries is carried out according to the level of competitiveness of national higher education systems which is supported by their positioning in the system of quality coordinates, coverage with higher education and intensity of use, the construction of competitive maps of the global educational market, cluster analysis. Indicators of quality of higher education systems, which are the components of global competitiveness index, and the indicators for ranking the national systems of higher education are the basis for constructing competitive maps. Based on the analysis of competitive maps, the dynamics of positions of the countries are identified and the feasibility of their division into four groups is substantiated. It was found that the grouping of countries and their key characteristics correspond to the levels of development inherent in the paradigms Education 1.0 — Education 4.0. Four types of competitive disposition of national education systems have been identified: leadership, strong, weak and outsider, each having its own peculiar features. The expediency of grouping national systems of higher education into intermediate, transition subgroups, which are distinguished from one to three. It is discovered that each of the methods of grouping countries has drawbacks and advantages, so different ones can be applied depending on the objectives of stakeholders. It is revealed that the identification of positions of the higher education system of Ukraine, as well as other countries, depends on the chosen system of indicators and demonstrates the possibility of its classification both as a country with strong competitive positions, and a country with outsider position. This is typical for countries of transition subgroup. Positive trends in 2017 allowed Ukraine to stabilize its positions in the global educational space, but did not compensate for the continued decline in key indicators of the higher education system. It is substantiated that in order to increase the competitiveness of the higher education system of Ukraine, it is expedient to implement a targeted development strategy that should integrate the key priorities of reform — the focus of activity on the results, the improvement of the effectiveness of interconnections, the development of business environment and the improvement of quality of the resource base.