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Soviet Union [USSR] EDUCATION
From its inception, Soviet education had Marxist-Leninist
philosophical underpinnings, including the dual aim of educating
youth and shaping their character. These aims were brought
together, as well, in the notion of "polytechnical education,"
defined loosely as integrating education with life--ideally
connecting formal schooling with practical training in all kinds of
schools and at all levels of education--with the aim of providing
a dedicated and skilled work force.
The government operated all schools, except for a handful of
officially approved church-run seminaries, which had an enrollment
of only several hundred people. Other characteristics were the
leading role of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in
all aspects of education; the centralized and hierarchically
structured administrative organs; and an essentially conservative
approach to pedagogy. The contemporary system also reflected some
holdovers from tsarist schools, including the five-point grading
scale, a formal and regimented classroom environment, and school
uniforms--dark dresses with white collars (and white pinafores in
the lower grades) for girls and dark pants and white shirts for
boys--in the secondary schools.
Educational reforms in the 1980s called for increased funding
and changes in curriculum, textbooks, and teaching methods to
correct serious shortcomings in the schools and improve the quality
of education nationwide. An important aim of the reforms was the
creation of a "new school" that could meet fully the economic and
social demands of the greatly modernized and technologically
advanced nation the Soviet leadership wished to create as it led
the country into the twenty-first century.
Data as of May 1989
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