The article is devoted to the problem of assessing the activities of scientific and pedagogical workers in higher education and professional qualities of teachers. The scientific literature is analyzed from the perspective of studying the criteria-based assessment issues in the education system. In a broad sense, criterion assessment refers to the technology for determining the professional achievements of scientific and pedagogical workers by comparing them with the signs by which the quality of the teacher’s activities is evaluated. To characterize the features of the criteria-based assessment of teachers’ performance in higher education organizations. The authors study and theoretically substantiate the need for assessment activities of teachers; reveal the principles and forms of criteria-based assessment (rating technology, a model for applying effective contracts); provide recommendations on the selection of indicators in the criteria-based assessment of educators. Materials and methods: theoretical (analysis of scientific and methodological literature, study of the experience of higher educational institutions), empirical (observation). The criterion basis for assessing the professional achievements of a teacher in higher education is recorded in the professional standard “Teacher of vocational training, vocational education and additional professional education”. The main principles of the criteria-based assessment of scientific and pedagogical workers are: the principle of descriptiveness (compliance with the current stage of development of the education system), the principle of interconnection and mutual influence of various types of activity, the principle of comparison and juxtaposition of the activities of teachers. The functions of criteria-based assessment include: diagnostic, controlling, motivational. The article provides examples of indicators of criteria-based assessment of the scientific work of university teachers. The results of the functioning of the system of effective contracts are presented on the example of the structural unit of the university. To determine the quality of the teacher’s activities, it is necessary to comprehensively evaluate all types of work carried out by him: research work, academic work, educational work, organizational and methodological, professional competencies. The indicators of such an assessment must be divided into mandatory (the basis for concluding a new labor contract), optional (basis for material incentives).