The engineer of modern agricultural production is obliged to improve himself, that is, to have persistent skills in creative professional self-training. The investigations were conducted within two Engineering faculties of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine, as well as the Engineering Faculty of the Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies. Achievement of the goals in the educational and cognitive activities of the future engineers depends on how fully the conditions of modern agricultural production, as well as the objective pedagogical conditions that determine the difficulty of the objects of study are considered. One of the main tasks of the formation of the readiness of the future agricultural engineers for professional activities and self-development in the process of teaching general engineering disciplines is the use of methods to enhance educational and professional activities. An efficient mechanism for the improvement of the educational process is the close cooperation of universities with the agricultural employers, and their involvement in the formation and implementation of the programmes, specialties and specialisations, coordination with them of educational and professional standards of modern engineering training. From the surveys the most significant skills to achieve the goals of independent educational and scientific activity of the future engineers were identified -this is the ability to find, analyse and interpret information in the process of educational and scientific activity, and-a skill to pursue a healthy way of life, to work efficiently, to spend one's free time in a rational manner.

The contemporary labour market requires from the future agricultural engineers not only in-depth theoretical knowledge, but also an ability to apply it independently in non-standard production situations. The article deals with problems how to clarify the level of the students' readiness for production activities in the agro-engineering sphere. It has been established that in the training process of engineers, an urgent task is brought to the forefront -to provide conditions that ensure efficient professional self-development of the creative potential of a student's personality; to achieve a high level of development and training of the future professionals, including, perhaps, through new, reassessed approaches to the content and organisation of the students' knowledge control process. The paper substantiates a presumption that the principal task of all kinds of the students' knowledge control is to verify the fulfilment of the ultimate goal of professional training -the formation of a multicomponent structure of technical thinking, as well as engineering and educational-cognitive skills, that is, checking whether the students' technical thinking has reached the structure to be formed the level of readiness for the future engineering occupation in the selected speciality. Implementation of the developing function of the knowledge control can be efficiently carried out by involving students in productive search activities, aimed at solving real engineering problems and problem situations. The results of comparative studies allowed drawing a conclusion about significant advantages of the indicators of the students from the experimental groups over the reference ones. So, 29 % of students in the experimental groups demonstrated a creative level of educational and cognitive activity, while in the reference groups there were 22 % of such students.

Training in agricultural universities of mechanical, process and design engineers for the field of agroindustrial production in modern conditions requires new approaches that provide a higher level of knowledge in comparison with the already working specialists. The research solved the following main tasks: a) consideration, establishment and analysis of the concepts of professional competence of an engineer; b) by means of expert survey of employers determination of rank correlation of necessary competences to consider aspects of their formation at engineering faculties of agrarian universities; c) by results of the expert survey establish whether a graduate of an engineering faculty has significant competences and exactly which, and after what time they began to manifest. The analysis of the results of the employers' survey has shown that the main and significant part of agribusiness managers believe that for graduates of mechanical and technological faculties, the important competence of higher engineering education is a thorough knowledge of the structure of modern high-tech equipment and agricultural machinery. Another part of the interviewed employers believe that the main competence of an agricultural engineer should be: firstlydeep theoretical knowledge, which forms the engineering competence of a specialist; secondly no less important, conscious understanding of the features of agro-business relations; thirdlyreadiness for selfimprovement. Graduate of an agro-engineering faculty of a university should acquire such knowledge, which will allow him at the beginning of his production activity to adapt as soon as possible to the real conditions. Then in insignificant time terms he is involuntarily forced to lag behind the "practitioners" at the beginning, but during the following terms from 1 to 19 months he gains advantage (according to the expert group survey), thanks to the new, acquired knowledge obtained through new teaching methods and with the help of IT-technologies.

Національний лісотехнічний університет України Збірник науково-технічних праць 26 Рис. 4. Хід росту за висотою дуба звичайного вегетативного походження Лівобережного Лісостепу України Натомість, у дубових деревостанах порослевого походження Лівобережного Лісостепу України спостережено пришвидшений ріст у молодому віці та спадаюча інтенсивність у старшому, що досить добре видно на рис. 4. Висновки. За результатами досліджень встановлено закономірності динаміки ходу росту у висоту модальних деревостанів дуба звичайного вегетативного походження Лісостепу України. Виявлено розбіжності у рості дуба за висотою у розрізі ліво-та правобережних частин Лісостепу. Так, для деревостанів Лівобережного Лісостепу спостережено зменшення інтенсивності росту після 70 років, порівняно з дубовими деревостанами Правобережного Лісостепу. Побудовані динамічні бонітетні шкали придатні для групування експериментальних даних з метою моделювання динаміки ходу росту інших таксаційних показників дуба звичайного вегетативного походження Лісостепу України.

The article studies the role of process control of educational achievements of students of higher educational institution in the formation of their readiness for professional self-development as future specialists in agricultural mechanization. In Higher Agricultural Education highlights the important task - to create conditions that ensure effective professional self-development of creative potential of students. To achieve a high level of development and training of future professionals is possible through a new, redefined approach to the content and organization of the process control of educational achievements of students. In the thesis, the thesis to the effect that the main task of all types of control of educational achievements of students is to test the performance of the ultimate goal of professional training - forming multicomponent structure technical thinking and engineering, educational and cognitive abilities that check whether the achieved technical thinking, structure which we formed, the level of preparedness for future engineering of the chosen specialty.