Talk:Education in the Soviet Union

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Contents 1 Template:Education infobox 2 Heavy POV article 3 The Early Period 4 Language Issues and Special Schools 5 Route to a VUZ 6 Entrance, admission to VUZ?

[edit] Template:Education infobox

I created a template, Template:Education infobox which can give a quick at a glance demographics table for education articles. See its implementation at Education in the United States and feel free to help improve the template.--naryathegreat | (talk) 01:00, August 7, 2005 (UTC)

Mostly useless here, unfortunately. mikka (t) 01:59, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Heavy POV article

Just compare Education in the United States article with this one, to understand what is NPOV and what is a heavy POV. US education system was not the best and the Soviet education system was not the worst.

Keep in mind, that the USSR was one of two superpowers and beat another one, the US, in many fields of science, although US beat the USSR in many other ones. Keep in mind, that certain influence of "totalitarianism" to the Soviet education system, if any, was in 1930s-1950s and not in 1960s-1990s. Please, look through any Soviet textbook for the secondary school, before you write things like this one:"the Soviet education was organized in a highly centralized government-run system, designed to fulfill political and military purposes foremost". Don't claim (BTW, with no sources, both Western and Soviet, cited), that "the internationally recognized education and science achievements of the Soviet Union were stimulated mostly by the Cold War arms race", at least because this is not claimed for the US, although US used similar amount of scientific and economic resources in the Cold War arms race. Keep in mind, that Soviet education system in post-Soviet states, which stopped to be developed in 1991, still produces not less qualified scientists, than does education system in the US, which did not stop its development in 1991.

In a word rewrite the article keeping in mind, that the USSR was one of two superpowers of the times, and not a silly and weak village-like country, beaten by many "civilised" ones in all fields of science. Cmapm 00:31, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

I just NPOV'd it a bit and changed the notice to verify. This article does need rewriting and sourcing. - FrancisTyers 00:53, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Dear Francis, let me answer you as the initial author of the article. I accept your accusation in failing to cite, as well as regarding the style. However, you should keep in mind that the totalitarian, repressive and war-oriented essence of Soviet regime is the universally recognised truth. Denying this by any mean is a simple way of becoming a Wikipropagandist of Russian/Soviet myth. Please do not cross this line. This is a polite and sincere request of a friendly Wikipedian.

Even if something is "universally recognized", this doesn't imply, that it's the truth. But this is even not the case here. The hardest is always to describe the history and essence of the subject; the easiest is, of cause, to say one word and call this "universally recognized truth". Cmapm 18:56, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Also consider the following:

• there were various units of the Soviet state (with thousands of employees and millions of budget) responsible for leaving me nothing/nobody to cite :)). Who am I to remove such a legacy? And who are you to state that everything uncited about my country is untrue? So please don't apply Western standards literally. I guess logic is the only verification :)).
• Regardless of what sources do I have (or have not) to cite, you got almost nothing. Please believe my professional journalist knowledge that 90% of Soviet/Russia/Ukraine stuff written by Westerners is bullshit (no matter which POV side the author supports). Instead, I have a unique local knowledge and experience which I think makes me (and other local Wikipedians) a primary source.

I have a unique local knowledge and experience too, I was born there and learned there, so I know that education system. However, I don't rely universally on my own view, but rather rely on sources, both Western, Soviet and Russian ones. Cmapm 18:56, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

However, everything I've done is wrong! Can't wait for your development of the article. Best wishes, AlexPU 19:56, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for your input, as someone who has grown up in the USSR would you consider joining WPSU to help us improve articles on the Soviet Union? A brief explanation of my major edits to this article:

Hi Francis. I'm glad to see your co-operative reaction to my may-be-emotional notes. We could establish a kind of co-work on this article. Considering the sad fact that I'm extremely busy with my job, let me suggest the following. I add here short thesises that reflect the common local knowledge and/or scholar consensus - with no citations and references. You could test them with your sources, discuss and ask additional questions. OK?

First, I'm answering your questions:

• Children of ethnic minorities and native tribes who didn't want to study were forcibly gathered to attend elementary schools.

This is irrelevant. You've already mentioned that education was compulsory. The same applies for the UK and many other countries. I think the Soviet Union probably didn't allow homeschooling, which is allowed I think in the UK provided the parents adhere to a state curriculum and have regular inspections by the government. If this is what you were trying to get at, you could rewrite it and add a reference maybe?

To the best of my knowledge, the first school-attending generation of chukcha etc. children (I guess in 1960s) has been forcibly gathered in their nomadic stands and packed into helicopters by teachers and local CPSU officials. You should be able to find respective info at least in memoirs published after perestroika. Later, such gathering became voluntary. Now chukcha schoolchildren are gathered to the boarding schools? (Russian: интернаты) where they live for months without contacting families. This may be called a historically-formed kind of totalitarian oppression.

• Since the supply of student vacancies and lecture courses was regulated by the bureaucracy ("planned"), the system failed to answer labour market challenges in the late 1970s and 1980s. Enormous numbers of engineers were trained despite the hidden crisis of the economy and the declining prestige of the position.

No source, conjecture.

No insulting, please. I freaking live here. Don't you think I know that well enough to not 'conject'? I can make conjectures about life in U.S. or Africa. To find proves for this holy truth, you can:

• dig the biographies of the 100 most influential 30-40 y.o people of Russia (Ukraine etc.), and find out that many of them do not work in the field of their diploma qualification since 1980s-1990s. E.g., career KGB and CPSU officials are mostly qualified teachers (never working in schools).
• find numerous articles on Soviet labour market and professional structure, openly published after perestroika. In society, an "engineer" diploma and position was seen unprestigious since the beginning of 1980s.

• The internationally recognized education and science achievements of the Soviet Union were stimulated mostly by the Cold War arms race.

This statement doesn't help the reader. Rewording it to something like "The internationally recognised scientific achievements by the Soviet Union in many fields of research were stimulated by the demand for advanced weapons spurred on by the Cold War and the arms race". Of course a source for that would be required, I don't know even if that is true I just made it up, but it sounds much more plausible no? The other point about education, I would have thought that educating the populace was more about control than the the cold war. How can your population read your propaganda if they can't read? Again I'm speculating, you'd need to provide a source.

OK, reword like you laid it. But please "provide a source" by yourself. Everybody knows this.

• Although this system was unbelievably ineffective by economic standards

How was it ineffective, by what economic standards, why was its ineffectiveness unbelievable?

By the everage world standards and educational structures. No other country funds and tries to employ all its students in such quantities. There is no other country where all schools etc. are funded and governed by the central government.

• The Soviet education was organized in a highly centralized government-run system, designed to fulfill political and military purposes foremost

Like the rest of the Soviet economy I agree that education was organised in a highly centralised government-run system. That's the whole thing with planned economies. I don't think the other part adds anything to the article without some kind of reference or further explanation.

Not economy, Francis. Who the F cared about economy in USSR? If I wasn't so busy and poorly-English-speaking, I could tell you the unbelievable, shocking facts about Soviet economy. It was all about politics, power, and coercion: economy, education, science, war, sex etc. You should read more about totalitarianism to broaden your capitalism-centric view.

• and sociology

Where did you get this from? Do you mean some fields of sociology? From [1]:

The Laboratory of Sociological Research is one of the oldest sociological institutions of Russia and the ex-Soviet Union. It was organized in 1966, two years before the foundation of the Academic Institute of Sociological Research, and it has been the "forge" of sociological establishment in our city for a long time.

I clearly know that all the sociology institutes founded in 1960s (actually, under Khruschevs "Warmup") were closed in the middle of the 1970s, with scholars banned from respective terms, concepts, specializing etc. Mostly, they joined the philosophy and labour studies institutes to survive professionally. Soviet sociology revived only under perestroika. Public opinion studies have been prohibited until perestroika too.

I hope this explains some of my edits, please feel free to improve the article as you see fit. Judging by the article as it stands I don't think you can say that "everything that you've done is wrong". - FrancisTyers 01:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

No, you improve it if you question my unbeatable conclusions :) Best wishes, AlexPU 14:35, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, some edits by Francis were NPOV in my view, I'll try to add more inf. into the article in the nearest future. Cmapm 18:56, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Early Period

I hope somebody expert in this subject will take on the situation in the experimental "cultural revolutionary" stage of Soviet education in the 1920's -- before the authorities decided that teachers were to run the classrooms, not the students (I think there was even a Politburo decree to this effect); before it was decided that classes, textbooks, and discipline were essential to the education of children; and before there was a prescribed curriculum with specific hours and "lessons" as the units of instructioin. The early period was wonderful, and it was also "Soviet," but that was before the centralized institutional structure took over in ca. 1930. There's some information on this in Sheila Fitzpatrick's "Cultural Revolution" book, and I hope someone will write something here on the utopian phase of Soviet education in 1920's.--Mack2 00:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Related to this, it would be helpful to have a section devoted to Soviet pedagogics. At this time the article speaks mainly of the institutional structure but hardly at all about the content of curricula, methods of teaching and learning, and so forth. I can't do such a section but I hope somebody else can take it on. Vygotsky's (Выготский) psychology is also some to be mentioned in that section.--Mack2 20:22, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Language Issues and Special Schools

In my opinion, one of the most important achievements of the Soviet educational system was that it managed at various times to offer schooling in 100 different languages. A small section of this article needs to describe the setting up of the "national schools." This was the only way that the country as a whole was able to achieve the high levels of literacy that it obtained, and also to reach the situation of 100% matriculation in the primary schools by the early 1960's even in some of the most remote or "backward" regions of the country.--Mack2 00:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I've now added a paragraph on this issue. It could be made into a larger section with more details but I think this paragraph captures the essence of the policy and its implications.--Mack2 16:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

On another dimension, I've already added a brief mention of the organization of special schools for the handicapped, something that "took off" after Khrushchev's educational law was first implemented in 1959-60.--Mack2 00:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Route to a VUZ

I think a chart might be helpful to illustrate the routes to higher education. In the meantime, I have clarified that graduation from a PTU was an academic end -- not a route to either completed secondary education or to higher education. Graduates of PTU's were not eligible to enter a VUZ, unless somehow they went on to another secondary school to complete their diploma. Only the graduates of (general) secondary schools or specialized secondary schools (or tekhnikumy) were eligible for entry to a VUZ. (I also added the acronym VUZ to the brief summary in the text because it was widely used both colloquially and in "formal" writing about education as a short-hand way to refer to higher educational institutions.)--Mack2 15:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Proposed rewording. I would like to change the translation of srednyi from "middle" to secondary, which is a more conventional translation; and similarly of vyssheye from "highest" to higher which is also a more conventional translation. It's consistent with the Russian use (and translation) of primary (nachal'noye), secondary (sredneye), and higher (vyssheye) obrazovaniye. This approach also avoids some awkward expressions in English and should cause no problems that I can envision. Without any objection here, I'll make those changes in a day or two. Thank you.--Mack2 23:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Entrance, admission to VUZ?

This article could use a small section on how extrance to VUZy was determined. By examination (what kind? Specific to each school, do you have to travel to the vuz to take the exam, when?), did applicants make multiple applications in a given year, what determined success especially in admission to most prestigious institutes or universities? I know many students might wait year after year to reapply for the most prestigious schools. How did this work? Here is one subtopic in which those with experience within the system can be especially helpful. Thank you.--Mack2 01:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)