Social Partnership in Higher Education Institutions as a Relevant Problem of Educational Management

Journal of Environmental Treatment Techniques

2020, Volume 8, Issue 4, Pages: 1463-1467

J. Environ. Treat. Tech.

ISSN: 2309-1185

Journal web link: http://www.jett.dormaj.com

https://doi.org/10.47277/JETT/8(4)1466

Social Partnership in Higher Education Institutions

as a Relevant Problem of Educational Management

Galina Ivanovna Gribkova *, Ekaterina Valerievna Bulkina , Nadezhda Alexandrovna

Shapovalova , Vera Viktorovna Chizhikova , Ekaterina Alexandrovna Amarantova

Moscow City Teachers’ Training University, Moscow, Russia

Russian State Social University, Moscow, Russia

College of the Russian State Social University, Moscow, Russia

Received: 26/05/2020

Accepted: 29/09/2020

Published: 20/12/2020

Abstract

Education has acquired a strictly focused nature, which is associated with the need to form reliable partnerships between universities and

potential employers. This type of partnership is called social. The purpose of the study is to consider the problem of organizing social

partnership, which is aimed to restore the focus of the activities of music education institutions on the results and values of education – the

formation of students’ most important social, intellectual, and moral qualities and skills. The basis of the work comprises theoretical and

practical research methods in the fields of management, sociology, economics, history, musical pedagogy, psychology, and cultural studies,

as well as statistical data collection and analysis, observation, and forecasting. The main results of the study are that all five functions of the

management system in the field of education, including professional music education, – forecasting, planning, and organizing activities,

teamwork coordination, personnel training, monitoring and evaluation of the quality of educational services – are closely related to a specific

product (a specialist in the field of musical art and pedagogy) and its promotion to the consumer (institutions of arts and culture, general and

additional education institutions). Conclusions: Management in the field of education is primarily based on the grounds, goals, objectives,

and principles shared with the social partner. These goals and objectives provide the focus that should determine the management of

educational institutions.

Keywords: Education, Employer, Management, Social Partnership

As noted by T. Agasisty, in recent decades, evaluation of the

Introduction

efficiency understood as “the ability to produce the maximum

amount of educational service for a given budget” has become the

main trend in the development of the higher education system [3].

This trend has formed under the influence of the decrease in

public investment in the budget of educational institutions and the

transition of the latter to internal financing [4]. R. Zemsky

believes that “the future holds more privatization of public

institution” [5]. Thus, the main criterion for the evaluation of the

efficiency of a higher education institution is the correspondence

between the budget and the level of provided services.

Professional preparation of musical specialists remains a

relevant task of higher education. However, in different periods

of the development of the education system, ways of solving it

varied depending on historical and social conditions.

Globalization, internationalization, digitization, replacement of

traditional values by new ones, revision of cultural orientations of

the past, etc. determine the nature of the formation of the

educational doctrine [1]. An important role in it is played by

modern principles of organization and management in

professional education as a complex sociocultural sphere.

Another trend, closely related to the aforementioned, is

university ranking based on various indicators [6-8]. Indicators

include the activeness of academic exchange, the volume of

attracted investment, the scientific value of employees’ research,

the number of received grants, the number of graduates,

professors’ qualifications, infrastructure development, the

number of publications in journals indexed in international

databases, international significance of conducted public events,

and the scale of partnership with foreign organizations. However,

among these indicators, the main, if not the key one is absent –

the level of graduates, facing difficulties related to employment

The goal of music education management is satisfying

society’s need for highly qualified specialists and professionals,

meeting demands of the modern labor market, which provides the

efficiency of an educational institution. A successful partnership

between higher education institutions and local communities is

highly estimated by D. Siegel in his book [2]. He identifies the

key organizational factors of this success: a well-developed

conceptual framework based on organizational theory, joint

planning, and focus of the higher education institution and its

partners on social well-being, values, and justice.

Corresponding author: Galina Ivanovna Gribkova, Moscow City Teachers’ Training University, Moscow, Russia. E-mail:

gribkova.g.i@mail.ru

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2020, Volume 8, Issue 4, Pages: 1463-1467

matching the studied specialty and further career development. D.

Bok claims that “only those institutions that vigorously uphold

academic values, even at the cost of a few lucrative ventures, will

win public trust and retain the respect of faculty and students” [4,

p. 54]. These goals and tasks provide purposefulness, underlying

educational institution management.

successfully solving the problem of social partnership, ensures the

effectiveness of the functioning of the modern education system

as a whole.

Methods

The problems of management in the field of music education

Today, managers of different levels in higher education

institutions of arts and culture must be sociologists, psychologists,

culturologists, promoters, marketers, administrators, economists,

and even politicians. Thus, “being the catalyst of the interests of

the collective, consumers of its products, and society as a whole,

a higher education institution manager acquires tremendous social

significance, using the components of science, art, creativity, and

intuition, integrating different types of relationships” [9, p. 45].

The education reform at the beginning of the 21st century

produced such artistic and stylistic trends in music education that

require a revision of managerial approaches, providing the

efficient functioning of the new education system. A variety of

styles and tendencies in contemporary art, freedom of creative

self-expression, independence of artistic search, active

modernization of musical language, formation of new esthetic

phenomena, coexistence of different cultures (elite and mass,

traditional and innovative), multiculturalism of society as a

whole, coexistence of pop music and highly artistic works – all

this requires organization of music education based on new

foundations, as well as rational modern management. Modern

music education requires “intellectual resource/capital for the

formation of a creative economy and implementation of the state

policy in arts and culture” [10].

Music education management provides the efficiency of an

educational institution, in particular, professional preparation of

highly qualified specialists, able to compete in the modern labor

market. Having appeared relatively recently, management soon

became one of the sciences of the third millennia, on which the

efficiency of any kind of institution depends. There are many

reasons for this: social, psychological, cultural, economic, and

technological [11]. According to O.E. Shilova, in modern society,

there is a growing “need for constructive management and

functioning of a collective, formation of resources and means for

its development and functioning, interaction with other social

subjects” [9, pp. 44-45]. Today, educational management,

including music education management, has become a socially

relevant phenomenon [11].

The contribution of authors can be substantiated as follows: if

in the works of management researchers in the field of education

the search for objective assessments of universities’ functioning

and solutions to the pressing problems of managing educational

institutions is carried out, then this article proposes to build

university ratings based on an estimate of the number of graduates

employed in the specialty received, which is rarely used. Social

partnership seems to be the most important management problem

in the field of education and one of the first steps in organizing

effective university activities. It is designed to restore the focus of

educational institutions on the results and values of education.

Research hypothesis. Today, the success of the university

depends on active cooperation with employers and developed

social partnership, which helps improving the quality of

graduates’ training and ensures their relevance in the labor

market. At the same time, education management, integrating

different types of relationships into a single whole and

are multifaceted, and therefore require a comprehensive approach

to their solution. The most important research method was an

expert survey with the participation of three experts from the state

accreditation commission, which conducted the assessment of the

activities of the Russian State Social University during the

accreditation period in the fall of 2018. This method allows

evaluating the efficiency of a higher education institution and

management results, as well as proving the hypothesis that

developed social partnership helps improving the quality of

training of graduates and ensures their relevance in the labor

market. In particular, during the accreditation of the university,

experts noted such an area of activity as the department for

developing partnerships between the university and employers

and the department for employing graduates, as well as

conducting scientific research on assessing the level of employer

satisfaction with the quality of graduate training.

Results

The concept of management includes managerial,

administrative, and organizational activities. Management is

understood as a complex of actions, aimed at reaching a high level

of the development of the organization and quality of provided

educational services by means of efficient acquisition,

distribution, and use of resources to achieve the institution’s main

goal [12, p. 3]. Educational management includes five main

functions: forecasting, planning, and organization of activity,

coordination of collective work, personnel training, and, finally,

monitoring and evaluation of the quality of educational services

[13]. However, in addition to intellectual resources, an

educational institution requires human and financial resources,

allowing it to achieve its goals.

The functions of music education management are

organization, implementation, and correction of the educational

process results in accordance with society’s needs, coordination

of the interaction between the educational institution and its social

partner, identification of problems in achieving the desired result

and their solution, and creation of favorable conditions for joint

activity. The result of a manager’s activity, aimed at the

implementation of efficient social partnership, is a product

(

specialist in the field of musical art and pedagogy) and its

promotion to the consumer (arts and cultural institutions, general

and additional education institutions).

All five functions of the educational management system,

including professional music education, – forecasting, planning,

and organization of activity, coordination of collective work,

personnel training, and monitoring and evaluation of the quality

of educational services – are closely related to the concrete result.

Thus, educational management requires primarily for

foundations, goals, tasks, and principles common with a social

partner [14]. However, in practice, only four out of five functions

can be successfully performed: control and assessment of the

quality of educational services are carried out according to

external, often quantitative, but not qualitative criteria.

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2020, Volume 8, Issue 4, Pages: 1463-1467

Methods to form a system of partnerships

between an educational institution and

interested organizations

Direct interaction with

Arrangements with the public

employers

employment service

Work with metropolitan and

regional authorities

Connection with public

organizations

Figure 1. Methods to form a system of partnerships

The insufficiency of the joint work of the university

leadership with social partners in determining common grounds,

goals and objectives is obvious. Social partners of music colleges

and universities are institutions employing graduates, as well as

persons using the results of their creative activity and even parents

formation of professionally significant competencies, required for

work. “Key competencies play the main role in the development

of a teacher musician, thus, special disciplines and subjects are of

great importance” [16, p. 93]. Moreover, one of the trends of the

last decade is the appearance of creative industries, corporations,

and clusters – organizations, comprising several connected

institutions, providing the full production cycle of a product or

service from idea to promotion to the consumer. The system of

targeted training is developing. Thus, today, the problem of

forming social partnership has become one of the most important

in the management of higher music education institutions.

Social partnership allows employers to directly participate in

the educational process and higher education institutions – to

achieve the result expected by employers. Thus, social

partnership improves the level of professional education and, as a

result, provides successful employment of young specialists, as

well as optimizes financial and labor costs in educational

institution management. In educational institution management,

social partnership relies on a number of fundamental principles,

forming, according to T.N. Suminova, “the philosophy and

culture of management” [10].

[15]. Thus, cooperation between employers and educational

institutions is a complex system of subjects, united by a common

goal and interested in shared results (products or services) of joint

activity. Engagement of participants in joint activity and creation

of connections between the system’s elements serve as the basis

of social partnership. Several methods are applied (Fig. 1). The

main tasks of social partnership are as follows:

•

Engagement of employers of other organizations, using

results of the activity of higher education institutions, in the

professional preparation of specialists to satisfy society’s needs

and optimize the labor market [16];

•

Formation and development of a system of professional

orientation and social self-identification of the youth,

encouragement of conscious choice of the future profession,

improvement of the professional education system, and creation

of conditions for the career development of a future graduate [10];

•

Teaching the main principles of building a professional

career and behavior in the labor market [17];

Correction of an educational program in accordance with

According to 2017-2018 statistical data, at present, graduates

of arts and cultural universities are in high demand in the labor

market and perform productive activity in cultural and

recreational organizations and additional education institutions.

Successful employment of graduates of arts and cultural

universities is related to the fact that in the educational process,

students achieve a high level of professional competency and

acquire personal qualities necessary for future professional

activity. As a result, graduates of higher music education

institutions successfully work in various organizations: theaters

and studios, ensembles, choirs, and orchestras, on television and

radio, children music schools and studios. This is associated with

the coexistence in modern music education of “multidirectional

•

labor market demands to ensure maximum employment of

graduates [18].

The state expects high results from universities in the form of

specialists, able to perform productive activity for the good of the

society and provide its economic growth. Professional

educational and socioeconomic relationships based on internal

and external factors grow increasingly close. According to

experts, among partnerships and forms of interaction between an

educational organization and interested institutions, the most

significant is direct interaction with employers in the form of

direct agreements on targeted admission of applicants. This

relationship does not work due to the fact that in practice the

opinion of employers regarding the competence of specialists in

a particular field is not taken into account when developing

curricula. There are too many intermediaries between the social

partner and the university, as a result of which they are unable to

sit at the “negotiation table”.

methodological paradigms

–

conservative, avant-garde,

technocentric, dialogical” [19]. These paradigms provide

comprehensive preparation in higher music education

institutions. Thus, the ranking of a higher education institution

increases in terms of both study goals and results and expediency

of organization and management of the educational process.

Employers usually find specialists at job fairs. However, in

the last decade, employers seem to evaluate graduates’ practical

skills at creative shows, festivals, competitions, concerts, and

cultural and educational events [17]. An example of a “casting of

professionals” is a youth theater festival, performer competition,

concert, or cultural and educational project, implemented jointly

or based on social partnership. Student concerts are held at

Discussion

The connection between an educational institution and a

social partner ensures the efficiency of the higher education

institution and the modern system of professional education in

general. Educational programs include disciplines, providing the

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2020, Volume 8, Issue 4, Pages: 1463-1467

various city venues for various reasons: holiday, memorable

historical event, patriotic, cultural, educational, or recreational

event for children, etc. Employers witness a specialist’s skills in

their practical implementation rather than just take the candidate’s

word at the interview.

At such events, conducted jointly with social partners, many

graduates receive official job offers, which increases the number

of employed graduates and increases interest from applicants to

this university. Both students and their parents, choosing an

educational institution and a specialty, first of all think about

future employment and the level of their training in accordance

with the requirements of employers. These projects become a

perfect opportunity for young musicians, teachers, and specialists

in sociocultural activity to find a job. Organization of such events,

as well as activization of social partnership in general, are

important tasks of modern music education management.

employers as experts evaluating the professional competence of

graduates of a particular field of training. Methodological

developments in these areas of research are required. Social

partnership appears to be an important problem of educational

management and the first step in the organization of efficient

university activity. It is meant to restore the focus of music

education institutions on results and values of education – the

formation of the most important social, intellectual, and moral

qualities and skills and preparation of specialists, able to perform

productive activity for the good of the society and provide its

future economic growth.

Ethical issue

Authors are aware of, and comply with, best practice in

publication ethics specifically with regard to authorship

(

avoidance of guest authorship), dual submission, manipulation

of figures, competing interests and compliance with policies on

research ethics. Authors adhere to publication requirements that

submitted work is original and has not been published elsewhere

in any language.

Conclusions

Thus, during the study of the practice of interaction between

the University of Culture and Art with social partners, the

hypothesis has been proved that the success of the university

depends on active cooperation with employers and developed

social partnership, which helps improving the quality of training

of graduates and ensures their relevance in the labor market.

Today, employers seek to hire comprehensively prepared,

competent, creative, and independent specialists, freely applying

innovative technology. Due to them, the ranking of a higher

education institution increases in terms of both study goals and

results and expediency of organization and management of the

educational process.

The success of a higher education institution depends on

active cooperation with employers and developed social

partnership, which improves the quality of graduates’ preparation

and provides their competitiveness in the labor market.

Educational management, integrating different types of

relationships and successfully solving the problem of social

partnership, provides the efficiency of the modern education

system, as well as the stable development of society.

The findings of the study are as follows: music education

management has high social significance and, thus, becomes a

mechanism for stabilizing the development of society as a whole.

In pursuit of financial advantage, many higher education

institutions have turned from platforms for discussion of

innovative ideas and scientific discoveries into companies with

colorful logos and catchy advertising slogans. As social

institutions, universities share social values. The main feature of

shared values is a social partnership between higher education

institutions and consumers of the results of their educational

activity.

The research devoted to educational management is

concerned with the search for objective evaluation of universities

and solutions to relevant problems of educational institution

management. In our opinion, university ranking must be based on

the evaluation of the number of graduates, employed matching the

studied specialty, which is rarely applied. Prospects for further

research in this area are as follows: revision of the system of

criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of the educational

institution and the inclusion in the system of such an important

indicator as statistics on the employment of graduates by

profession, level of satisfaction of employers with the quality of

training. In addition, it is advisable to study the opinions of

Competing interests

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that

would prejudice the impartiality of this scientific work.

Authors’ contribution

All authors of this study have a complete contribution for data

collection, data analyses and manuscript writing.

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