CLUSTER ANALYSIS OF TRAINING SPECIALISTS IN THE FIELD OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION IN BELGIUM

Abstract

The article highlights the main areas of activity of AEQES (Agence pour l’Evalution de la Qualité de l’Enseignement Superieur), an independent state agency responsible for assessing the quality of higher education in Belgium and funded by the government of the French Community of Belgium (Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles). The AEQES steering committee includes representatives from four sectors of higher education (academies of arts and conservatories, adult education institutions, universities and university colleges), as well as representatives from student organisations, trade unions, the labour market and civil society, and foreign experts. Particular attention is paid to the methodology and results of a special cluster study on the quality of educational services in the field of information and communication, conducted by AEQES in 2019–2021. A systematic approach was used to determine the prospects for training specialists in the field of information and communication; methods of analysis of scientific publications and information resources, content analysis of the websites of universities in the Kingdom of Belgium and the Belgian Agency for Quality Enhancement in Higher Education (AEQES), systematisation of information and generalisation were applied. It is noted that the development of specialisations in the field of library science and information sciences is progressing rapidly worldwide, and, as evidenced by the analysis of the “Information and Communication” cluster conducted by the Belgian agency AEQES, it can prepare both universal specialists and support highly specialised fields. Specialists in communication (including applied communication), multimedia technologies, and librarians-documentalists are in demand on the European labour market. It is emphasised that the modernisation of higher information education in Ukraine, accompanied by the introduction of new professional and educational standards for the B13 Library, Information and Archival Studies specialisation, requires studying the experience of European universities in order to implement their achievements.