The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of a systematic approach to the formation of professional competence of students in higher educational institutions. The study was conducted in the S. Seifullin Ka-zakh Agro Technical University with the participation of 126 master students (2 groups) of the specialty “Vocational Education”. Using a complex of theoretical, empirical and statistical methods, it was possible to show the ways to increase the effectiveness of the educational process. The basic principles for the training of students were formulated as: 1) systematic approach to the formation of profes-sional competence, organization and implementation of the educational process; 2) program-targeted formation of the indicative basis of the upcoming profes-sional activity, and 3) creating a competency model of the corresponding special-ist as a hierarchy of the student’s professional competency system, its subsys-tems, and supersystems. It is recommended that Kazakhstan universities should improve tools and procedures for assessing and monitoring students’ level of knowledge, as well as create new programs for developing students’ professional competencies to ensure their successful employment. The further research on the matter may be the systematic comparative study of contemporary teaching meth-ods and techniques to determine the most productive ways to prepare future pro-fessionals.

Objective: The paper examined for the first time the features of the formation of systemic critical thinking of students of a higher educational institution, using systemic methods specially developed for this.Background: Unfortunately, there is practically no specific technology or even a method that specifically solves the problem of forming critical thinking. Nevertheless, each person who did not even receive the skills of critical thinking in the learning process possesses this type of thinking to some extent. Method:The method of systemic structuring and studying information about the objects in question solves important tasks of developing ways of thinking that are very relevant for future specialists. Implementing the methods of systemic cognition of the studied objects and the surrounding reality ensured the development of the systematic knowledge, skills, and systemic and other relevant ways of thinking and a systematic approach in cognitive and other activities. Results:The peculiarity of what has been said is that students in the process of implementing this method learn and develop simultaneously the proposed types of activities (actions) and the corresponding ways of thinking, including critical ones, determined by them. The particularly important result of the implementation of a systematic approach and systematic methods developed on its basis is the formation of systematic-critical thinking. Conclusion:The concept of systematic-critical thinking has been developed. Using a systematic approach as a scientific method allowed to significantly transform not only theory and practice but also existing traditional technologies of the formation of critical thinking.