I.M. Kamov - an Enthusiast and an Eminent Personality of Practice-Oriented Education in Irkutsk

Abstract

The article reconstructs the unknown life and activity facts about Ilya M. Kamov (1873–1942) an eminent personality of practice-oriented education in Irkutsk in the first quarter of the 20th century. The authors focus their attention on the “works and days” of the teacher dedicated to Irkutsk Industrial College and also to the City’s Commercial College and Irkutsk Industrial and Economic Institute founded on the basis of the latter, where he was Director. On the pages of this article, we can see the eminent figure of a real enthusiast oriented at practical professional education. The content of the article is beyond the scope of the historical storyline reconstructed in it. The historical events of secondary and higher professional school are considered in the wider context of the period of the so called “pragmatic” turn in pre- and post-revolutionary Russian education, which meant submission of the country’s educational policy to the needs of modernization and, namely, of industrialization. Even the professional activity of the main character of the article reflects the clear line of institutional thinking of practice-oriented education development of that period from technical education to commercial one with their subsequent amalgamation in the framework of industrial and economic education, on the one hand, and from secondary professional to higher education, on the other hand.