Higher Education and Sustainable Development Promotion: International Potential and Its Elaboration in Ukraine

Abstract

This paper reveals the theoretical and conceptual foundations of the issues of global institutional transformations, transformative strategies of higher education, quality issues, personality-oriented strategies, multiculturalism, communication strategies of higher education. It presents thelevel and quality of internationalization of higher education in Ukraine, the formation of a worldview basis to stimulate and ways to ensure sustainable development of society, to increase the social responsibility of higher education and to strengthen its functional efficiency for society. In higher education now it is lack of basic systemic knowledge about sustainable development, its aims and ways. The environmental issues are quite often misevaluated as relevant only to natural sciences, social and humanitarian tasks of sustainable development are underestimated. In many countries, especially from former colonial or quasi-colonial status ones, the success of sustainable development policy is crucial dependent on recognition and acceptance of this policy by new generation of citizens. Students as an advanced and socially active part of new generation are the target audience for sustainable development enlightenment. In Ukraine these problems are additionally determined by low participation in international projects and some bureaucratization of such participation.