FORMATION OF THE ECONOMIC COMPETENCY OF THE HEAD OF AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION WITHIN ADVANCED TRAINING SYSTEM

The worldwide shift to the market economy has radically changed the key guidelines within the professional education goals, including the training process of future managers. Today the professional activity performed by the head of an educational institution (HEI) is inalienable from the economic issues. The modernization of the education system presupposes the creation of the educational services market, altering the status and broadening the economic self-sufficiency of educational institutions, which leads to certain increase in rectors' and directors' responsibility level and the need to improve their professional competency. The modern society is awaiting the appearance of a new manager who is eager and bound to provide the effectiveness of an educational institution within the market reality. We define the essence of the concept of “the HEI's professional competency” by clarifying its content through a distinction with similar notions: “competency” («компетентность») and “competence” («компетенция»). Analysis of numerous studies dedicated to the nature of competency in specifying the theoretical essence of the above-mentioned notions leads us to the conclusion that they are closely interrelated. In its most general form, the concept of “competency” means the characteristic of a person (competent, knowledgeable, enjoying full professional rights), while the concept of “competence” describes what the person has (duties, range of issues, abilities, knowledge and skills). According to A.V. Khutorskoy and I.A. Zimnyaya, we distinguish “competency” and “competence” as common and individual, as “alienated, pre-set requirements” and a personal quality (characteristics); as “potential - urgent, cognitive - personal”, respectively. The theoretical analysis of the economic aspect of the HEI's professional activity served as the basis for singling out the new professional quality, which we defined as the economic competency . It allows the HEI to successfully complete economic tasks of different complexity levels. Being an individual's qualitative characteristic, the HEI's economic competency is determined by the nature of his/her professional activity and is a unity of theoretical (economic knowledge), practical (economic experience), motivational readiness and ability to carry out this activity, which is embodied in material, socio-economic and personally significant product - sustainable functioning of the educational institution. The following criteria of the economic competency were singled out: the assimilation of economic and legal knowledge (knowledge-based) - awareness of concepts, terms, definitions that form the basis of the chosen profession; mastering relevant skills (activity-based) - analyzing and designing real economic situations, choosing ways to solve economic problems, work with legal texts, predict the future; the formation level of valueoriented economic activity (motivational) - the motives of professional activity, the mental acceptance of the market economy, the consistency of economic and social goals, the concentration on achieving a high level of the economic competency; formation of personal qualities (personalityfocused) - understanding the economic competency as one of the leading professional values, adequate self-assessment of one's abilities. The mentioned criteria indicate the complexity of the process of forming the economic competency within the system of the HEI's advanced training. To determine the degree of the economic competency formation in the educational process of the advanced training system, we identified four levels of the HEI's economic competency formation: insufficient, basic, advanced and leadership. Each previous level determines the next and is included in its composition. The insufficient level was manifested in the HEI's inability to solve most of the standard economic tasks. The basic level characterized the HEI's ability to solve standard economic tasks at the reproductive