Social unequliity and educational possibilities in Ukraine

The article attempts to outline the dependence of access to quality education on the socio-economic status of the individual. The purpose of the article is to investigate the problem of the impact of social inequality on educational opportunities in Ukraine. The main focus is on analyzing the social determinants, causes, circumstances, trends, and major barriers that emerge from the realization of opportunities for equal access to education, which formulate and systematize a range of organizational and economic approaches and mechanisms to overcome these barriers. An attempt was made to outline the differentiation of educational opportunities at the level of admission to the university, depending on the type of school graduated from high school and the type of settlement in which this school is located. It is proved that external independent assessment of knowledge, formally offering equal opportunities for admission to higher education institutions, in fact not only does not ensure equal access to education for school graduates, but also reinforces the inequality of starting chances, which is conditioned by social status and manifested in the form of unequal access to quality education. at previous levels of education. It is noted that in recent years there has been an institutionalization of education as a commodity against the background of expanding educational opportunities, but its commercialization does not focus on the quality of educational services. It is revealed that free access to education can be characterized as an indicator of the effectiveness of public administration from the standpoint of the analysis of financial accessibility of educational services and physical accessibility of educational institutions. The necessity of structural reforms in the educational sphere, aimed at as far as possible to implement the principle of equal access of every citizen to high quality educational services, has been proved.