Paper Title
Benchmarking to Improve The Characteristics of The Higher Educational Process (On the Example of Georgia)

Abstract
Today, the labor and education market is characterized by high competition. In order to gain a leading position in the market, it is very important for higher educational institutions to improve the characteristics of the educational process. The article identifies the factors of the competitive environment in the educational space, evaluates the basic standards of the higher educational institution. The role of benchmarking in improving the characteristics of the higher education process is substantiated. A bibliographic and quantitative research has been carried out. It is concluded that benchmarking provides a substantial improvement in the characteristics of higher education. Identifying quality using this process is the basis for significantly improving the higher education system in general, and for institutional, educational program and learning/teaching transformation in a particular higher education institution in a way comparable to leading higher education institutions. At the end of the paper, conclusions and recommendations on measures and directions for improving the characteristics of the higher education process using benchmarking are presented. Keywords - Benchmarking, Higher Education, Quality Assessment, Characteristics