State Educational Policy as an Instrument for Strengthening the Intellectual Potential and Economic Security of the Nation

Abstract

Abstract. The article provides a scientific and analytical substantiation of the causal relationship between educational policy, intellectual potential, and economic security of a nation. It is determined that in the 21st century, educational policy is transforming into the fundamental infrastructure of the state's economic strategy, shaping the country's capacity to maintain technological chains, manage complex systems, and recover from shocks. The categorical apparatus of the study is elaborated: educational policy is conceptualized as a subsystem of public policy with five components (goals, instruments, institutions, financing mechanisms, and monitoring of results), intellectual potential is interpreted more broadly than formal education as an aggregate of knowledge, skills, competencies of the population and the institutional capacity of organizations to accumulate and transfer knowledge, and economic security is linked to the sustainability and autonomy of reproduction. It is demonstrated that the link between education and economic security is not linear and depends on the institutional environment, economic structure, and alignment of competencies with labor market needs. Financial, institutional, and content-related instruments of educational policy are analyzed using examples from Finland, Estonia, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea, where decades of institutional consistency have ensured sustainably high outcomes. The impact of armed aggression on Ukraine's educational system is examined through the mechanisms of infrastructure destruction, mass migration of students, learning loss, and psychosocial barriers to learning. It is established that Ukraine demonstrates a structural contradiction between relatively significant expenditures on education and a limited capacity to convert them into sustainable growth of intellectual potential and innovativeness. It is substantiated that the transformational model of post-war educational recovery is more rational than the compensatory one from the perspective of security. Five strategic priorities for educational policy are formulated: restoration and safety of the educational environment, quality and relevance of competencies, institutional capacity for quality assurance, human capital retention and return policy, and European integration mechanisms for institutional modernization.