DISTANCE EDUCATION AS A FACTOR OF EDUCATION SYSTEM GLOBALIZATION: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF DEVELOPMENT

The article mainstreams the problems and prospects of development of higher academic distance education as a factor of globalization of education system in general. The ICT Development Index (IDI) calculated annually by the International Telecommunication Union indicates progress in access to ICTs around the world. The average IDI value rose by 0.18 points from 2016 to 2017 for all countries. The development of information technologies could not but influence the process of education. Elearning as a new mode of learning using various multimedia tools provides almost unlimited access to knowledge for a person staying anywhere and learning at a convenient time, as well as flexibility and scalability. The article defines higher academic distance education as the "standardized" part of the broad concept of E-learning, which also includes "daily self-development of an individual" (studying at various training courses or trainings, studying information bases, and so on). In percentage terms, at present higher academic distance education is a competitive equivalent of the classical full-time / correspondence system of education. According to the annual report of the ICDE (International Council for Open and Distance Education), almost 71% of respondents agreed that technical facilitation of educational process will change the entire education system significantly within 5 years. Consequently, modern E-learning technologies put higher academic education to a new stage of development, which is a distance platform that allows provision of high-quality educational services in a more mobile way. The synergistic approach studying distance education makes it possible to unequivocally determine that this method of education has a stimulating effect both on the national system of higher academic education and on the globalization processes in the field. The analysis of dynamics of the higher academic distance education development makes it possible to emphasize problem areas in this field: - financial support for the development of innovative technical platforms for educational process; - insufficient number of qualified specialists, including for training teachers; - moral and ethical norms of a new form of teacher-student communication; - preservation of the national system of education. These problems are possible to be solved due to the growing role of global interaction, leading to education process globalization. In these circumstances, creation of an open international learning space: the "global electronic institute" can become a promising direction of development as well as of leveling the identified problem areas of higher academic distance education. This learning space will provide equal access to educational programs for teachers and students from developed and developing countries as well. The relevance of this line of development is confirmed by the Global Innovation Index (GII-2017) data, which demonstrates the existence of a gap in the innovative capabilities of developed and developing countries, which does not contribute to the world community's development and global problems' solving.