Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0396/03965.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 24KB | 453 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03965}
$Pretitle{295}
$Title{Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Education}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Hippocrene Books, Inc}
$Affiliation{Embassy of USSR, Washington DC}
$Subject{education
schools
students
training
years
general
school
year
million
colleges}
$Date{1990}
$Log{}
Country:     Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Book:        USSR Yearbook '90
Author:      Hippocrene Books, Inc
Affiliation: Embassy of USSR, Washington DC
Date:        1990

Education

     Around 110 million people in the Soviet Union, or one in every three,
were involved in various forms of education in the 1988-1989 academic year.
Both secondary and higher education is free.

     A comprehensive education reform has been in progress since 1984 to
develop optimal forms of teaching and improve the content of instruction to
meet the challenge created by technological advance.

     In the years of stagnation, the system of education was seriously
damaged. Formalism and levelling in the academic process and the pursuit of
uniformity barred the way to young people's self-fulfilment. With large
numbers of college-trained staff available for productive employment, there
was a shortage of high-class manpower. This meant a depreciation of training
and slow advances in science.

     An All-Union Congress of Educators in Moscow in December 1988 considered
ways the education system should follow and the shape it should take by the
end of this century.

     The congress acknowledged that constructing a new education system is
going to be a long and complex process. The task is not only to upgrade the
Soviet school structure but to make it more flexible, mobile and capable of
self-development in accordance with changes in the life of society, its needs
and requirements. Much has to be done to advance the teaching process itself,
methods of instruction and education, and to diversify them to a point where
they suit the natural, social and ethnic distinctions of the numerous national
communities.

     The overriding objective of the entire system of education must be to
create the conditions whereby the individual can best achieve all-round
development with due regard for personal qualities. The work necessary to
reform the Soviet education system (in the widest sense) will be vast in its
scale and take years to carry out. However, many features of the new system
are present today. An integrated system of continuous education is emerging
and, in fact, has already established itself in numerous forms, from the day
nursery all the way to the end of man's working life.

PRE-SCHOOL FACILITIES

     In the day nurseries, children learn the ABCs of reading, writing and
counting. There are over 145,000 nursery schools in the Soviet Union today,
accommodating 17.5 million children. About 80 per cent of the accommodation
cost in day nurseries and creches is covered by the state.

     In the day nurseries, children are subdivided into three age groups:
3-5-year-old, 5-6-year-old and 6-year-old. In the form of games, the children
learn not only to read, write and count, but also to draw, design simple
things, and sing and dance. Most important, they familiarize themselves with
their surrounding environment. Even at this early stage, the educators are
able to establish the bents and abilities of the children.

     However, pre-school facilities are still in short supply. Upwards of 1.5
million children are in need of nursery or creche accommodation.

GENERAL EDUCATION

     Secondary education, which is compulsory, will now take 11 years to
complete. It consists of three levels. The first may start at the age of six
or seven and continue for three or four years. This is a major innovation for
the Soviet school system which before had a common specified school-age limit
and course of tuition. This is basic schooling for all.

     The second level is five years of instruction under varying curricula
tailored to the abilities and inclinations of all pupils. 75-80 per cent of
the curriculum is drawn up by central institutions, the rest being left to the
discretion of the teacher who remains free to use his/her own imagination and
devise his/her own  distinctive methods of tuition.

     The third level is three years of instruction in line with every pupil's
particular choice of the subject that he or she wants to major in: sciences,
humanities, biology, linguistics, etc. There are to be no more than five
compulsory subjects, these being the native tongue, literature, general and
recent history, natural science. Other subjects, like maths, art studies and
physical education, are still under debate in the teaching profession.

     School days are all the days of the week, except Sunday. Every lesson is
45 minutes, with the breaks ranging from 10 to 20 minutes. Some schools have
been experimenting with a five-day week and 40-minute lessons. The school year
throughout the nation begins on September 1 and ends in May. It is divided
into four terms, with holidays of up to 10 days between them. The summer
holidays last from June to September.

     At their parents' request junior pupils may stay on at school after
classes, in the care of their teachers, in "extended-day groups". They have
their lunch at school, relax, play, and do their homework until their parents
come back from work to take them home. The extra expenses involved are covered
by the state, the parents paying only part of the cost of the meals.

     "Zero" forms. These are provided for six-year-olds. They, as we have
established from actual experience, find it much easier to study than others
when they pass from the "zero" form to the first form. Children are eager to
learn from games and competitions. The lesson for them is 35 minutes; 2.1
million were in their "zero" forms in the 1988-1989 school year.

     Computerization. Computer classes began to be formed at secondary schools
in 1985. It is a fact, however, that the USSR has just embarked on large-scale
education computerization, and computers are still in short supply. Only 12
per cent of secondary schools had basic information processing and computer
technology rooms in 1988. Pupils at schools which as yet have no such rooms
train at interschool workshops established in many cities and districts or use
the computer facilities of research institutes, factories, designing offices,
colleges and universities.

     Optional courses. There is a wide range of courses in literature,
history, sciences, biology, chemistry, and linguistics for schoolchildren to
attend if they wish to learn more of the subject they like best.

     Many colleges and universities run something like preparatory courses to
offer vocational guidance to schoolchildren and to test their aptitude. Their
instructors are senior students and teachers.

     Specialized schools. These are schools and classes for advanced
instruction in individual subjects, like art, sport or foreign languages, for
fostering the schoolchildren's interests and abilities and providing
vocational guidance.

     In the art appreciation schools, for instance, children get, besides
general education, some grounding in music, arts, choreography as well as
general aesthetic training.

     Everything begins in preparatory classes. Six-year old children listen to
music, sing in chorus, do some a year or two, teachers do their best to
encourage a love for art, develop their inclinations, identify their ability
and try to discover their calling at an early age.

     With their bents and skills identified, they pass on to specialist
training, subject by subject: music playing, conducting, drawing, modelling,
painting, sculpture, rhythmics and dancing.

     On graduation, school-leavers can read and play music, and are able to
accompany singers. They know the origin and history of the instrument they
have chosen, and have a certain amount of knowledge concerning the classics of
world music, painting and choreography. Whether or not they will turn
professional r