PECULIARITIES OF SCHOOL EDUCATION PERFORMING IN THE RURAL AREAS OF UKRAINE IN 1953–1964

Abstract

Summary. The purpose of the research is to research the development of secondary school education in the countryside of Ukraine in 1953–1964 on the basis of the analysis of the references, using the latest principles and methods of solidly historical cognition. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, scientific character, verification, authors’ objectivity, and the use of historical-statistical, institutional, systematic and problematic-chronological methods, methods of comparative judgment and generalizing inference. The scientific novelty. The dynamics of development of secondary education in the rural areas in 1953–1964 was traced. A detailed analysis for in-depth knowledge of that time forms of training of rural people was made. The positive aspects and disadvantages of the educational transformations of 1953–1964 were analyzed. One of the advantages was the elimination of illiteracy of rural people; among the negative aspects were shortage of skilled personnel, reduction of hours devoted to humanity subjects, overloading most rural schools pupils with labor during industrial training, and divorcement of that labor from the curricula, the transformation of schools into powerful coordinators of ideological work. Conclusions. In general, the period from 1953 to 1964 was marked by a complex process of secondary school restructuring. Since 1958, instead of seven-year, a compulsory eight-year school education was introduced, thus, full secondary education could be received in three stages: after finishing full secondary school, by continuing education at a school of rural or working youth or in a labor polytechnic school with industrial training, which was compulsory in the upper classes and, in the rural areas, was functioning in the form of pupil’s production brigades. It was thanks to it that rural pupils of senior classes could receive the skills of work. So, the development of the school education in the rural areas helped to solve one of the main tasks – illiteracy among rural population – and gave rural people the opportunity to get further education in training colleges and agricultural higher educational institutions.