The legal nature of educational policy in the context of constitutional law

The scientific article carries out a comprehensive scientific study of the essence of educational policy as a constitutional and legal category. It is established that in the conditions of transformational changes caused by war, digitalization, decentralization of public administration, the importance of educational policy acquires special relevance not only as a management tool, but as a legal mechanism for implementing the constitutional right to education. It is emphasized that despite the growing scientific and applied interest in the subject of educational policy, its doctrinal understanding in the constitutional and legal context remains fragmentary. Theoretical and methodological approaches to the definition of educational policy as a legal category are revealed. Foreign and Ukrainian scientific discourse is summarized, within which educational policy is interpreted as the result of balancing between public interests and individual rights, as well as an instrument of state influence on social development. It is confirmed that pedagogical, managerial and administrative-legal interpretations of this concept prevail in Ukrainian jurisprudence, while its constitutional and legal nature – as a form of implementation of the fundamental right to education – has not yet been properly systematized. The historical and legal context of the emergence of the term «educational policy» in the English-speaking and European tradition is studied, its evolution from an instrument of state influence to a multi- level structure of political and legal strategies is emphasized. It is established that the formalization of the term in the Anglo-Saxon education system took place in the middle of the 20th century, and in the European context - through the Bologna process, which transformed approaches to educational management, bringing them closer to legal and constitutional standards. The circle of key scholars who contributed to the doctrinalization of the concept of «educational policy»: V. Zhuravsky, E. Krasnyakov, L. Prokopenko, Yu. Tereshchenko, A. Osmolovska, as well as S.J. Ball – one of the first to interpret educational policy not only as a normative system, but as a space for ideological and institutional struggle. Modern encyclopedic and doctrinal definitions of educational policy are summarized, and an attempt is made to typologize them according to the criterion of subject coverage and legal significance. It has been found that educational policy acquires a constitutional and legal dimension through its structural integration into the mechanism for implementing Article 53 of the Constitution of Ukraine. It has been proven that educational policy has a value, normative and functional load, being a form of transformation of the provisions of the Fundamental Law into specific public-legal mechanisms for ensuring educational rights. The structural plan analyzes three main components of the constitutional and legal mechanism for the implementation of the right to education: normative, institutional and control and guarantee. It is established that the normative component covers the Constitution, special educational legislation and relevant program documents that detail and systematize constitutional provisions. The institutional component reveals the subject composition of educational policy, covering legislative, executive and local authorities, as well as civil society actors. The control and guarantee component are represented by the system of judicial control, primarily the activities of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine and administrative justice, which ensure the compliance of educational policy with the principles of the rule of law, justice and legal certainty. It is summarized that educational policy in Ukraine is a form of public governance, which simultaneously performs the function of implementing the right to education and is formed in a legal field subordinated to the principles of constitutionalism. It is emphasized that the normative principles enshrined in Article 6 of the Law of Ukraine «On Education», the rule of law, humanism, equality, accountability and openness, indicate a direct connection of educational policy with the value field of the Constitution.