Environmentally conscious and preparation of competent professionals’ in higher education system in Kazakhstan is a priority. The need for more effective environmental competence formation for students actualizes the problem of development and scientific substantiation of the theoretical model of students’ environmental competence, methods of their formation, and diagnostics. To achieve this goal, we used a range of methods that are relevant to the problem – analysis, modeling, experiment and synthesis. The developed model of environmental competence is the main competence of future specialists of any profile and reflects the dialectical relationship of the characteristics and functions of environmental competence. It is shown that an environmentally competent individual is willing and able to act competently in situations that threaten life, safety or nature. Structural analysis of environmental competence model revealed the peculiarities of its formation, as well as to develop knowledge about it. The results allowed developing assessment and diagnosis system of students’ environmental competence formation. System’s application in the course of the experiment showed that 77% of the participants have the environmental competence formed at a low level, which confirmed the need in the author's methodology implementation. This article describes the stages of the author's methodology and provides methodological recommendations for students’ environmental competence formation. It is concluded that students’ environmental competence formation must direct the pedagogical efforts not so much on the individual components formation of environmental competence as on functional and structural relationships’ formation and development between them.

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