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Soviet Union [USSR] Control and Administration
As was the case in every other major area of Soviet life in the
late 1980s, the CPSU exercised ultimate control over the
development and functioning of the nation's education system.
Designated by the Constitution as "the leading core of all
organizations of the working people, both public and state," the
Central Committee of the CPSU made major policies and decisions
regarding all aspects of education
(see Soviet Union USSR - Central Committee
, ch. 7).
The party leadership accepted fully Lenin's dictum about the
inseparability of politics and schooling/schools, and it
appreciated the far-reaching power of education as a tool for
refashioning the country's social fabric, "an instrument for the
formation of a Communist society." Specifically, the Central
Committee's Science and Education Institutions Department initiated
education policies to ensure ideological conformity in all
instruction. Together with the committee's Ideological Department,
it issued laws and regulations governing all major spheres of
education. The Council of Ministers and the Supreme Soviet, in
turn, gave pro forma ratification to party directives and executed
them
(see Soviet Union USSR - Central Government
, ch. 8). Administration of the school
system was carried out by the government's education ministries
under the direct authority of the Council of Ministers. In the late
1980s, the two chief administrative organs were the Ministry of
Education, which administered primary and general secondary
schools, and the Ministry of Higher and Specialized Secondary
Education, which oversaw institutions of higher learning and
specialized secondary schools. These central,
union-republic ministries (see Glossary) operated
through similarly named republic
ministries, which were further broken down into province, district,
and local school committees. The republic ministries and their
administrative organs at the province, district, and local levels
were responsible for implementing the laws, regulations, and
directives concerning school curricula, methods of instruction, and
textbooks, and they also supervised the allocation of funds at
their respective levels.
Other main administrative organs (with counterpart agencies at
lower governmental levels) were the Ministry of Culture, which
operated special schools of art, ballet, and music, and the
All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, which oversaw vocational
and technical schools. Management of higher education institutions
involved administrative agencies from the various party organs and
government ministries, such as those involved with health,
agriculture, communications, and civil aviation. Not surprisingly,
these numerous entities spawned a huge bureaucracy, one that
represented a formidable obstacle to implementation of major school
reforms introduced in the mid-1980s.
In the 1980s, overbureaucratization was openly criticized by
the official press and by leading educators as a major cause of the
serious lack of quality in education. For example, management of
technical training, the most critical area for the success of
economic reform, was excessive: seventy-four ministries and
administrative departments oversaw institutions of higher learning,
with thirty of these ministries directing only one or two
institutes each. Another 200 administrative departments were in
charge of specialized secondary schools.
Traditionally, the party apparatus had exercised control over
not only the direction of educational development but also the
implementation of policies and directives. The essentially parallel
structure between party and government provided the main mechanism
for this oversight. Furthermore, most administrators in central,
republic, and local education posts were party members, as were the
majority of school directors and many teachers, particularly at the
higher levels (one-sixth of secondary school teachers belonged to
the CPSU). The large body of Komsomol members in the upper grades
of secondary schools and in institutions of higher learning also
aided party oversight.
Data as of May 1989
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