Universal Secondary Education Research Articles

Chapter 6. Curriculum and Teaching Methods in the Soviet School

The highest goal of upbringing and education in Soviet society— the comprehensive, harmonious development of the individual-is secured mainly by universal secondary education, which is an aggregate of knowledge of the scientific principles of nature, society, thought, and art and of the abilities and skills all people require irrespective of their occupation. The higher demands that production makes on their educational level in connection with technical improvements in industry, agriculture, the service sphere, and management, the increased social activism of the working people, and their higher level of intellectual and moral development necessitate continuous improvement in the teaching and upbringing process, in curriculum, and in teaching methods in the school.

Chapter 10. The School and the Komsomol

The 40-million strong Leninist Komsomol is the school's closest helper in developing and improving compulsory universal secondary education and communist education of pupils. "Komsomol committees," the salutation of the Central Committee of the CPSU to the Nineteenth Congress of the AULCYL [All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League—Komsomol] emphasizes, "are called on to develop in youth a responsible, creative attitude toward their studies and to see to it that worthy replacements for the work force are trained in school, in vocational-technical training shops, and in college classrooms." 1

The General Education Preparation of Pupils in Technicums and Training Schools

The complete transition to the universal compulsory secondary education of youth is an outstanding accomplishment of the Communist Party and the Soviet people and of the socialist social system. Ninety-eight percent of eight-year-school graduates today receive a [complete, ten-year] secondary education. Approximately 13 percent of eight-year-school graduates enroll in technicums and training schools.

The Self-Education of School Pupils

The mandate from society to our school - not just to provide pupils with a definite sum of facts but also to develop their ability to augment their own knowledge independently and to find their bearings in the torrent of scientific and political information (see: Materials of the Twenty-fifth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [Materialy XXV sezda KPSS]) - demands that the problem of self-education be posed in the school. This means that even under conditions of universal compulsory secondary education, the school has ceased to be the concluding stage of self-education. Schooling has become the basis, the start, for the continuing and continuous self-education of the individual in socialist society, continuing after graduation from school and later on, in both secondary and higher-education institutions. N. K. Krupskaya continually stressed the importance that self-education holds for comprehensive development of the individual [2].

Pedagogical Support for Universal Secondary Education

Educators, like all Soviet people, have hailed enthusiastically the decision of the June Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU] to convene the regularly scheduled Twenty-sixth Party Congress [in 1981]. Events have confirmed the wisdom and farsightedness of the decisions of the Twenty-fourth [1971] and Twenty-fifth Congresses [1976] of the CPSU. A Leninist policy has produced remarkable results in the area of education: compulsory secondary education for youth has become a vital indicator of our society's culture. The main task of the school and the teacher today is to raise the level of the teaching and upbringing process in every way, to make the classroom lesson and all work apart from the lesson highly effective, to improve constantly the quality of school-pupil knowledge and practical skills and the preparation of young people for life and work.

Foreword

The Twenty-Fifth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1976 noted the need for further serious improvement in the entire system of general education, especially in the secondary school. It is no easy matter to resolve the problem of the universal compulsory secondary education of youth. In completing this task, special importance attaches to improving the training of teachers, who are called upon to solve creatively various problems in the communist education of the new [Soviet] man. Today's Soviet teacher must know the basic principles of pedagogical theory, which is continuously developing under the conditions of scientific-technological and social progress, as well as how to apply these theoretical principles in practice, thus creating new and valuable experience in teaching and upbringing. The most important of these principles is the attainment of an integrated approach toward defining the role of education; that is, a close unity of ideological-political, labor, and moral education; the formation of an activist stance in life among the Soviet people, and the development in them of a patriotic and internationalist consciousness and a communist ideology, which is an amalgam of knowledge, conviction, and practical activity. The Soviet school works to resolve these challenges with due regard for actual possibilities and prospects.

Educational and Upbringing Work at School Boarding Hostels

The decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the USSR Council of Ministers, "On Measures for Further Improving the Working Conditions of the Rural General Education School" has in general helped to raise the level of educational and upbringing work in the rural school, in keeping with current and projected requirements of developed socialist society. At the present time, about 1,500,000 pupils live in school boarding hostels throughout the country. Moreover, with the completion of the transition to universal secondary education, approximately 50 percent of the total number of pupils living in boarding hostels are upper-graders.

Editor's Introduction

Abstract In May 1971, Soviet Education (vol. XIII, no. 7) published a long article on the economics of the transition to universal secondary education, which at the time was a new priority in Soviet educational policy. The authors of that article were V. A. Zhamin and S. L. Kostanian, research colleagues at the Institute of Economics of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

The Financing of Universal Secondary Education: (Certain Theoretical and Practical Problems)

The development of public education has always been one of the primary concerns of the Soviet state. V. I. Lenin noted that anyone who pledges himself to the building of communist society "must realize that he can create it only on the basis of modern education, and [that] if he does not acquire this education communism will remain merely a pious wish." (1)

Psychological Problems in the Education and Upbringing of the Rising Generation

The Soviet people and all progressive humanity are observing an anniversary of outstanding significance — the sixtieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. This date symbolizes the universal historical achievements of the Soviet people's state in all areas of material and intellectual life. Of utmost importance in its history has been a successful approach to the problem of creating the new [Soviet] man, an integral role in which is played by the communist education of the rising generation. During the years of Soviet power and under the leadership of the Communist Party, a socialist culture has been created, something new in the history of mankind. "Socialism has given workers broad access to the knowledge and riches of our intellectual culture. … The transition to universal secondary education has, for the most part, been completed" [2; 8].

Cooperation between the School, the Family, and the Community (from the Experience of Schools and Public Education Agencies in Moscow)

The decree of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the USSR Council of Ministers, "On Completing the Transition to the Universal Secondary Education of Youth and Further Developing the General Education School," emphasized that resolution of the tasks slated for education will depend primarily on the activity of public education agencies as well as on Party, soviet, trade union, and Komsomol organizations and their active and continuous attention to general education schools. This instruction of the Party and the government provides the key to understanding the growing importance of community assistance to the school at the present stage. The broad spectrum of problems relating to the upbringing and education of the younger generation cannot be resolved without the combined effort of the school, the family, and the community.

II. The Effectiveness of the Financing of Universal Secondary Education

II. The Effectiveness of the Financing of Universal Secondary Education

Editors' Introduction

Education is a high-cost enterprise whose expenditures intensify as educational provision is expanded. In the USSR, while national school enrollments increased only 1.4 times between 1940 and 1972, expenditure on schooling increased 8.8 times. The pamphlet The Financing of Universal Secondary Education, translated in this issue of Soviet Education, discusses the financing of the ten-year general education school in the Soviet Union and argues in support of current policies to further centralize the school finance mechanisms of the Soviet state.

Major Problems in Developmental and Educational Psychology at the Present Stage of Development of Education

In our country we have created a broad network of preschool institutions, the transition to universal mandatory secondary education is being brought to completion, and the role of non-school institutions in the upbringing of children is being considerably broadened. From all these developments is emerging a unified system of social education and upbringing of coming generations, and interaction of this system with the family is creating favorable conditions for shaping a new man, a worthy builder of communism. The present state of Soviet developmental and educational psychology as a scientific discipline is inextricably tied in with the requirements and prospects of the system of social education.

Ways to Make Physics Teaching More Effective

The Twenty-fifth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) evaluated the all but completed transition to universal secondary education as one of the most important accomplishments of the Ninth Five-Year Plan [1971-75]. The decisive step was thus taken in realizing Lenin's program for the communist upbringing and education of the younger generation, expressed in the lofty phrase: "One can become a communist only when one has enriched one's memory with a knowledge of all the riches produced by mankind."

Sociological Problems of the Transition to Universal Secondary Education

Building the material and technological foundation for communism presupposes developing not only the material but the personal elements of the productive forces. In the Report to the Twenty-fourth Congress of the CPSU, L. I. Brezhnev emphasized that modern production makes rapidly growing demands not only on machines and equipment but above all on the personnel themselves - on those who create the machines and those who run them. Specialized knowledge, a high level of occupational training, and general culture become obligatory for successful work by ever broader strata of personnel. (1) Mechanization and automation of production raise to a constantly increasing degree the role of polytechnical knowledge and creative initiative in production processes. The capacity to think creatively and to work with inspiration, along with a high level of discipline, precision, and faultless performance, become decisive for personnel of any rank.

Attainments and Tasks of the Soviet School

In fulfilling the decisions of the Twenty-fourth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the Soviet general education school has made a significant contribution to cultural construction in our country. One of the main achievements of the Ninth Five-Year Plan in the field of education is the basic completion of the transition to universal secondary education of youth. The country has created a network of schools to comply with the law on universal compulsory eight-year education and to insure that boys and girls in town and country receive a secondary education. In the years that have elapsed, a certain reduction has occurred in the overall number of schools; for example, the number of elementary schools has been reduced by more than 1.5 times, although the number of secondary schools has increased. At the present time, approximately 75 percent of all pupils are attending secondary school.

The School for Adults in the Tenth Five-Year Plan

The past five-year plan became a decisive stage in completing the transition to universal secondary education of the younger generation.

The Teacher — the Most Important Factor

One of the most important activities of education is teaching the Russian language to Soviet youth. The improvement of instruction in the national schools, secondary schools, and institutions of higher learning has been an object of constant concern to Party and Soviet agencies. The resolution "On Completing the Transition to the Universal Secondary Education of Youth and the Further Development of the General Education School" adopted by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1972, points up the need to improve instruction in Russian and in native languages in the national schools.

Ways to Improve Polytechnical and Labor Education in Rural Schools

With the achievement of universal secondary education of youth, an important social function of the school is to train the majority of its graduates for work in the sphere of material production. Speaking at the Seventeenth Congress of the All-Union Leninist Communist Youth League (Komsomol), Comrade L. I. Brezhnev stated that today "a new type of production worker is maturing in whom manual and nonmanual labor are more and more harmoniously combined. He is a person with a broad vocational outlook, a high skill level, and a profound knowledge of the polytechnical principles of modern production, who is capable of rapidly mastering the latest machines and technological processes."