Education in the Soviet Union
From Free net encyclopedia
Soviet education was organized in a highly centralized government-run system. Its advantages were total access for all citizens and post-education employment. The Soviet Union recognized that the foundation of their system depended upon complete dedication of the people to the state through thorough psychological training as well as through military training, and through specialized education in the broad fields of engineering, the natural sciences, the life sciences and social sciences, along with education. [1]
Contents |
History
In Imperial Russia, according to the 1897 Population Census, literate people made up 28.4 percent of the population. During the 8th Party Congress of 1919, the creation of the new Socialist system of education was proclaimed the major aim of the Soviet government. The abolition of illiteracy became the primary task in Soviet Russia.
In accordance with the Sovnarkom decree of December 26 1919, signed by its head Vladimir Lenin, the new policy of likbez, was introduced. The new system of universal compulsory education was established for children. Millions of illiterate adult people all over the country, including residents of small towns and villages, were enrolled in special literacy schools. Komsomol members and Young Pioneer detachments played an important role in the education of illiterate people in villages. The most active phase of likbez lasted until 1939, raising the literacy rate to 56.6 percent of the population in 1926 and further to 87.4 percent in 1939 (population census data).
However, the worst feature of Soviet education in 1930s-1950s was its inflexibility. Research and education in the social sciences was dominated by Marxist-Leninist ideology and supervised by the CPSU. Such domination led to abolition of whole academic disciplines such as genetics. Scholars were purged as they were proclaimed bourgeois and non-Marxist during that period. Most of the abolished branches were rehabilitated later in Soviet history, in the 1960s-1990s (e.g. genetics was in October 1964), although many purged scholars were rehabilitated only in post-Soviet times.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet people were about 99.7% literate. Soviet elementary and secondary schools, remain the unbeaten example of equality, social accessibility and high achievement. In the 1970s, according to some sources, the common situation was that an American or German university student would fail to meet the standards of a Soviet secondary school physics program.
Classification and Terms
The Soviet educational system was organized into three levels. The names of these levels were and are still used to rate the education standards of persons or particular schools, despite differences in the exact terminology used by each profession or school. Military, police, KGB and party schools were also graded according to these levels. This distinguishes Soviet system from the rest of the world, where educational levels of schools may differ, despite their similar names.
Elementary schools were called the "beginning" level (Template:Lang-ru, nachalnoye), 4 and later 3 classes. Secondary schools were 7 and later 8 classes (required complete elementary school) and called "incomplete medium education" (Template:Lang-ru, nepoloye sredneye obrazavanieh). This level was compulsory for all children (since 1958-1963) and optional for under-educated adults (who could study in so-called "evening schools"). Since 1981, the "complete medium education" level (10 or, in some cases, 11 years) was compulsory.
10 classes of an ordinary school was called "medium education" (Template:Lang-ru).
Tehnikums, PTUs and some military facilities formed a system of so-called “medium specialized education” (Template:Lang-ru, sredneye spetsialnoye). Learning at this level of education could be started after 8 or 10 classes of combined education in elementary and secondary school. Graduation from this level was required for the positions of qualified workers, technicians and lower bureaucrats (see also vocational education, professions, training).
“Highest” (Template:Lang-ru, vyssheye) education facilities included a degree-level facilities: universities, “institutes” and military academies. "Institute" in the sense of a school, refers to a specialized "microuniversity" (mostly technical), usually subordinate to the ministry associated with their field of study. The largest network "institutes" were medical, paedagogic (for the training of schoolteachers), construction and various transport (automotive and road, railroad, civil aviation) institutes. Some of those institutes were present in every oblast' capital while others were unique and situated in big cities (like the Literature Institute and the Institute of Physics and Technics in Moscow).
Numerous military and police schools (Template:Lang-ru, vyshee uchilische/shkola) were on the same graduation level. Note that Soviet military and police facilities named "Academy" (Template:Lang-ru, Akademiya) are not a degree-level school (like Western military academies such as West Point), but a post-graduate school for experienced officers. Such schools were compulsory for officers applying for the rank of colonel, see Soviet military academies.
The spirit and structure of Soviet education is mostly inherited by post-Soviet countries despite formal changes and social transitions.
Reference
Spearman, M. L. (NASA, Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA) Scientific and technical training in the Soviet Union, 1983