Training and characteristics of an educational leader: Ukraine VS the Netherlands (AVANS+)

The article focuses on the professionalisation of educational leaders and their role in the Ukrainian higher education system in the context of significant changes caused by foreign policy and economic factors. It has been found that important steps in stabilising the higher education system are the identification of policies that promote integration into the European educational and scientific community and the development of academic staff, including management staff, capable of organising an educational team on the basis of leadership. The experience of university training in Ukraine's partner country, the Netherlands, remains unexplored. In view of this, the article presents the master's programme in educational leadership at the Avans+ University of Applied Sciences, which is based on a combination of theoretical and practical components closely related to the real needs of the labour market. It is demonstrated that the peculiarity of this educational programme is its interdisciplinarity, which consists in the integration of psychology, business management and economics into the leadership programme. The profile of the educational programme is analysed: content and organisational features of training. Particular attention is paid to the concept of ‘educational leader’ and it is proved that this definition is significantly expanded and unites not only persons in managerial positions in educational institutions, but also external participants interested in the development of universities and the academic community, whose representatives are engaged in strategic management and quality control of education. The comparative analysis of educational master's programmes in Ukraine and the Netherlands has led to the conclusion that such foreign experience of university training has its own peculiarities and scientific novelty, which should be used by domestic developers of educational programmes and stakeholders to open educational leadership programmes.