The purpose of this study is to substantiate theoretical foundations of the development of organizational and legal model of competency-based education as an important means of the transition to innovative economy-knowledge economy, digital intellectual economy. An important problem, as follows from the analysis, is that the current legislation in the field of education, its actual organizational and legal model does not provide necessary reproduction of social capital as a leading factor in the fourth industrial revolution. The main ways to solve this problem is the design of the content (the organizational model) of the sound academic background and its subsequent formalization – development of the organization and legal model of competency-based education. The proposed solutions to the problem, which will be presented to the leadership of education and science of Ukraine, can be useful also to the scientists from other European countries which have similar educational and cultural traditions.