3-GORBACHEV+Ali,+Mehwish

Gorbachev - Education


 * 1. What was the situation for that group/institution before Gorbachev became Premier? **

Generally, the school system in the Soviet union was split into 3 kinds of general schools: four years (primary) in all rural areas; seven years (incomplete secondary) in all smaller urban areas; and ten years (complete secondary ) in all the larger industrial centers. Compulsory was also introduced in 1930 for the ages 8 to 12 in rural areas and 8 to 15 in all industrial and urban districts. In addition there are the trade schools and technicum. In 1950 all the general and vocational schools had an enrollment of 36,500,000 students. In addition the USSR had a total of 1,132,000 college students. All the elementary, secondary, vocational schools, and universities and a total teaching staff of 1,300,000, averaging one teacher for every 30 students.

Before Gorbachev became premier, during 1971-1975, there was something called the Soviet Ninth Five Year Plan which placed a great emphasis on expanding economic education. In 1971, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet union adopted a resolution entitled, “On Improving the Economic Education of the Working People.” The Soviet Union had 370,000 students majoring in economics as well as the Soviet Union attempting to increase the economic knowledge of approximately 90 million people in their work force which continued for a few years.

In 1971 about 14 million people were enrolled in the “new” and regular economic courses at Party schools and universities. The number of students in economic specialties in higher and specialized secondary educational institutions has reportedly “doubled.” In 1972 Party organizations indicated that most executives, 30 to 40 percent of middle-level production management personnel and specialists, and 15 to 20 percent of workers and collective farmers were involved in some form of economic studies. A two-year period of instruction outside normal working hours has been accepted as optimal in terms of length.

Document: (Baer)


 * 2. How did that group/institution interpret the application of those policies to it? **

In the wake of the perestroika that began in 1985, there was a burst of interest in democratization in education, as in all other domains of social life, and an enthusiasm for ideas of freedom and choice in education.

Overall the people welcomed the reforms that were being made but some felt that the soviet education was ruined, that the sudden restructuring would destroy how the russian education had been for many years. In the soviet schools, the virtues regarded as the most integral to the development of communist ethics were the following; Love of labor, patriotism, atheism, and collectivism. Because Gorbachev stated questioning some hallowed tenets of soviet ideology, teachers no longer received unequivocal guidelines about what values they were to inculcate in their students. Gorbachev and his followers were painfully aware that perestroika had engendered moral uncertainty among significant portions of the population, and the party had to work hard and fast to resolve such fundamental questions as: “How should we view soviet? What should we strive for? What do we renounce? What should we inherit and utilize, through restructuring, to achieve a qualitatively new stage of socialism?"

For many years various soviet leaders tried to initiate reforms to improve their economy, but nothing they tried succeeded very well, Gorbachev introduced perestroika, “restructuring,” which he hoped would get his country out of its economic problems. Gorbachev began his career as a reformer slowly and tentatively, at first concentrating only on economic reform, but he soon realized that economic reform demanded reform in the social and political arenas as well.

Documents:

//“The fundamental distinctive feature of perestroika,” Gorbachev believed, was “to unite as many like-minded people as possible in the effort to combat the phenomena that burden our life.” the first order of Business was “to get the better of the command-and-administer system rooted in the Stalin years and the period of stagnation” (the Brezhnev era). ...Gorbachev wanted a person to feel that he was in charge everywhere--”at the factory, in the office in his city, town, village, region and republic, to feel that he co-rules the country.” If people were to feel this way, Gorbachev believed, they would be encouraged to think for themselves in a critical, creative way that would benefit society at large. After the August coup in 1991, Gorbachev reiterated “in the most general terms” what perestroika meant to him: “economic freedom, political freedom, escape from isolation, and the inclusion of the country in the mainstream of civilization.” To gain the trust of the people, Gorbachev inaugurated a campaign for openness (glasnost), which initially endeared him to members of the intelligentsia. (Long 76-77)//


 * 3. How did the Soviet state apply those policies to that group/institution, and what were the effects? **

The February 1988 party plenum painted with broad strokes the general outline of the path that schools were to follow under Gorbachev and, with some notable exceptions, to a considerable extent under Yeltsin as well. Schools were to reflect trends in society at large--trends that were sparked and nurtured by Gorbachev himself and solidified by Yeltsin. The Soviet/Russian school under Gorbachev and Yeltsin was, in tandem with society, to become more open,more humane, more diversified, more decentralized, and more democratized.It was left to a number of outstanding "teacher-innovators" and two dynamic state educational leaders to take a small brush and fill in the details of the merging new portrait of the Soviet/Russian school. The two state educational leaders were Gennadii Iagodin and Eduard Dneprov. Iagodin was the minister of the USSR State Committee for Public Education, a committee formed on 8March 1989. In yet another in a long line of reorganizations of the Soviet educational bureaucracy, this committee replaced the USSR Ministry of Public Education, the USSR Ministry of Higher Education and Secondary Specialized Education, and the USSR State Committee for Vocational and Technical Education. With the downfall of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the USSR State Committee for Public Education, of course, became defunct. When Yeltsin Was elected chairman of the Supreme Soviet in June 1990, he appointed a kindred spirit, Dneprov, as minister of education of the Russian Republic, a position he held until late 1992. (Long 84) Effects: In 1994 the teacher education system in the Russian Federation consisted of 287 pedagogical schools and 75 pedagogical colleges, with an enrollment around 237,000; 97 higher-education pedagogical institutions (two were international pedagogical universities; eighteen had university status; fourteen were state {or regional] pedagogical universities), with an enrollment of nearly 432,000; 90 institutes for the improvement of teachers (IUUs), most of which have new names such as university of pedagogical mastery (art), institute for raising of qualifications, center for development of education, and so on.

Document:


 * 4. What was the significance of Gorbachev’s reforms as it pertained to that group/institution? **

Today in the eyes of many Russian educationists and teachers, almost everything is in ruins but there are encouraging trends in education. One of the most important educational trends for the Russians is the move towards humane education, that is education which is opposed to coercion, education that presupposes choice available to teachers and students. It is understandable that there is no place for all this in a totalitarian state. there may be humane teachers, but there cannot exist humane education as a general rule.

Patterns of enrollment in institutions of higher education have changed markedly. Competition to enroll in science or engineering courses has drastically fallen. On the other hand, humanities departments and colleges are experiencing a boom, as are departments of economics, management and law. Combined with the fact that many engineers and scientific researchers are leaving their professions in search of more money, this trend has serious implications for the future of science and engineering in Russia. These changes in Russian society as a whole are reflected in the attitudes of pupils in schools. This is shown by the results of a survey carried out in 1993 among 1012 school leavers from 29 schools in Moscow. The survey revealed that these young people are realists, acutely aware that hey world has become a difficult place in which to survive. Hence they are motivated and place a greater emphasis on independence and self-reliance. 80% of them consider that success in life depends on oneself and not on fate or external circumstances. ( Nikandrov 50-55)

Document: ( Nikandrov )

Bibliography:

Baer, John. "The Journal of Economic Education." JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.

 [|<] http://www.jstor.org/stable/1182456 [|>.]

Long, Delbert H. . "Questia School."Education of Teachers in Russia. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.

 [|<] http://www.questiaschool.com/read/27474021/education-of-teachers-in-russia [|>.]

Nikandrov, Nikolai. "International Review of Education." JSTOR. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2014.

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