Legislative and Regulatory Support of Higher Education Institutions in Ukraine

The purpose of the article is to highlight the legislative and regulatory support for the activities of higher education institutions in Ukraine and to outline the prospects for its improvement. Research methodology. The article uses general and special research methods aimed to highlight the legislative and regulatory support for the activities of higher education institutions, situational and action analysis of legal regulation, analytical monitoring of legislative and regulatory acts and publications on the topic of research. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the generalisation of theoretical knowledge regarding the regulation of legal relations in the field of educational services, updating of regulatory and legal documents and outlining of the main tasks for improving the legislative and regulatory framework for ensuring the quality of higher education. Conclusions. As a result of the analysis of the legislative and regulatory framework of Ukraine, which regulates the activities of higher education institutions, it is shown that important directions of its further development are reforming, modernisation, introduction of new standards and creation of healthy competitiveness in the international arena. The author outlines the trends in the development of higher education sector, the main challenges and the main shortcomings in the system of legal regulation, in particular, the financial problem — reduction of the state budget and the special fund; financing of the educational sector on the basis of the excess principle leads to problems of reduction of higher education institutions, falling prestige of the scientific and teaching profession, and departure of leading scientists abroad. It is determined that promising areas for improving higher education are the introduction of innovations and implementation of the Strategy for the Development of Higher Education of Ukraine for 2021-2031 in the field of higher education institutions. This is, first of all, the real academic autonomy of higher education institutions, which, among other things, gives higher education institutions the opportunity to develop educational and research programmes themselves. Key words: legislative and regulatory framework, higher education, higher education institutions, quality of education, Constitution of Ukraine, Law of Ukraine "On Higher Education", Law of Ukraine "On Education".