THE QUALITY OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AS A SYSTEMIC PROPERTY: DIMENSIONS, MECHANISMS, AND MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES

Abstract

The article proposes an interpretation of the quality of school education as an emergent systemic property arising from the interaction of structural, process, environmental, motivational, and value-based components within a school organization.

The relevance of the study stems from the fact that contemporary approaches to assessing the quality of school education are largely focused on measurable learning outcomes, while the systemic mechanisms of its formation within the organizational context of the school remain insufficiently theorized.

The purpose of the article is to provide a theoretical substantiation the quality of school education as a systemic property and to analyze the mechanisms through which it is formed at different levels of organizational complexity.

The research methodology is based on systems analysis, theoretical generalization, the structural and functional approach, and content analysis of scholarly publications.

The study defines the quality of school education as an emergent systemic property and substantiates the multi-level nature of its formation within the school organization.

Based on the analysis of legislative documents and scientific approaches, the article reveals a contradiction between the result-oriented normative definition of quality and the value-oriented goals of general secondary education. It also highlights the limitations of transferring classical industrial models of quality management into the educational context.

The article proposes the use of Kenneth Boulding’s systems typology to conceptualize the school as a multi-level system. At the structural, process, cybernetic, adaptive, genetic and social, cognitive, personal, and organizational levels, the mechanisms of quality formation and the corresponding managerial influences are identified. The findings suggest that effective quality management requires coherence across these levels and consideration of the role of the educational environment, organizational culture, and underlying paradigms of education. The article also emphasizes the gap between the subject-oriented paradigm declared in official (educational) discourse and the compliance-based control practices that dominate in many schools. The capacity of the system to reduce this gap is proposed as a key indicator of a school’s quality culture.

Future research prospects lie in establishing a foundation for the further development of managerial technologies aimed at ensuring the formation of school education quality within the logic of systemic complexity.