Federal university public department as an instrument of higher education quality assessment by professional community

The article deals with the main functions of the independent quality assessment of federal university curricula, such as: improving the quality of education, increasing in graduates' expertise meeting the labor market requirements, developing efficient responsibility tools and demonstrating the quality level of education to the government, society, applicants, students, graduates, businesses, academics, etc., improving the level of the stakeholders' confidence to the education quality, results and efficiency of education organizations, reinforcing the organization's image and brand in the market of educational services, stimulating market competitiveness of the graduates. A functional model of a Public Department has been developed within Alumni Association of Southern Federal University under the conditions of education modernization in Russia. Modern regulations on the Public Department have been described in the context of education foresights.