The Soviet Schools

In the early period the Soviet educationists experimented with methods similar in some respects to those in operation in Australia today — the use of I.Q.'s, the Dalton plan of learning, group projects and the like.

The results were unsatisfactory. Pupils were not acquiring a standard body of exact knowledge, and, by the use of I.Q. testing, were being directed into different types of school according to their supposed intelligence. Forms of inequality were entering the system in conflict with the basic principles of socialism.

After a national debate led by the Communist Party and the government, a uniform type of school and curriculum was established for all pupils. The emphasis was placed upon efficient, skilful teaching and systematic hard work as the central principles. Special schools, or classes with trained teachers, were established for handicapped, backward and socially-maladjusted children. When they had reached normal standards, they were in most cases able to cope with the normal work. Great emphasis was placed upon co-operative work by pupils; in the atmosphere of socialist life, the more successful pupils assisted the slower learners; whilst pupil organisations such as the Pioneers and the Young Communist League, gave leadership and inspiration in standards of scholarship and athletics.

From the beginning, Soviet schools aimed at giving a general cultural and a polytechnical education, so that the graduate of secondary schools would be equipped with both academic knowledge and some experience of production processes.

Educational research into the best methods of teaching was extensively employed, and in this field, also, the collective principle operated — the better or more advanced teachers communicating their methods to others. An Institute of Pedagogy maintains a scientific approach to the theory and practice of education. The authority of teachers was firmly established. They were given comparatively high rates of salary, and a place of honour in the community. At the same time, the teacher maintained his position in the school as the leader and director in a cooperative enterprise, rather than as a dictator.

Women have full equality of rights, of salary and of opportunity. Over 50%, of all Soviet teachers are women.

A large number of teachers have been elected to the Parliamentary bodies of the Soviet Union.

Discipline in schools is good and is based on firm adult leadership combined with pupil participation. The pupils, through their organisations, have an opportunity to express their viewpoint, but not to interfere in actual administration.

The fullest parent participation is enlisted in ensuring the maximum effort by pupils, and in discussing the development of the school, and educational problems.

The co-operation of home and school in the moral training and upbringing of children is highly developed, and school and home collaborate in assisting children to develop their personal qualities and to become useful members of society. (See below “Moral Training”.)

Thus education is a matter of earnest daily attention by governments, parents and teachers alike.

State expenditure per head on education is several times that of Australia.

It is a matter of the deepest conviction amongst parents, teachers and governments alike that nothing must stand in the way of each pupils achieving the maximum possible education and personal development. In his booklet “Education in the U.S.S.R.” (Soviet News Booklet No 24.) by F. Korolev, the author emphasises that care is taken to avoid “levelling” of children, and every effort is made to ensure the development of each child in accordance with his specific individual qualities.

Moral Training

Soviet education accepts its key place in the moral training of young people, for the whole period from kindergarten to secondary school and university. Teachers are expected to familiarise themselves with the home conditions of the children they teach, and to assist parents with advice in matters of lack of progress in school and also in questions of conduct and character development. However, this is not a one-way matter, for the school also has the responsibility to organise regular meetings of parents to discuss similar problems, and to hear parents’ views. A close bond is forged between home and school in the common task of the upbringing of young people. Soviet educationists stress the virtues of courage, honesty, a sense of responsibility, recognition of the rights of others, respect for older people, above all, training in proper workhabits as a preparation for life and in building character. Effective use is made of sport and the principle of teamwork. [12]

Pupil participation in corporate life is maintained through organisations such as the Pioneers and Young Communist League, class and club committees of various kinds. The development of a sense of social responsibility is regarded as a prime factor in the building of character.

Moral training is based, primarily, on training children in the fundamentals of correct behaviour and organising their lives, so that the observance of a satisfactory regimen becomes a matter of daily habit. Furthermore, the material conditions are provided to make the child’s life outside the school a balanced and satisfactory one.

A network of libraries brings the best kind of literature to every corner of the U.S.S.R., whilst film, radio and TV have maintained a high cultural level in all performances. When it is remembered that children and youth clubs, children’s theatres and other cultural facilities are available for the leisure hours, with emphasis on organised leadership by the children themselves, under adult guidance, the absence of delinquency as a major problem is not surprising.

Furthermore, the emphasis on art, music, and dancing, as well as physical fitness, and the facilities available for such activities, provides a rich cultural background for an even development.

Culture For All

For the last 30 years, most pupils, after spending their early years in preschool kindergartens, have been passing through the seven-year school from age 7 to 14 or 15. All were encouraged to continue at least part-time education after 15, in factory, trade or special technical schools, to qualify as specialists. Each year, increasing numbers went on to matriculation in the ten year schools and to higher education.

In the large cities in recent years, a very high percentage of the pupils have preceded to matriculation standard.

The qualifications of teachers have risen steadily. At present there are five times as many graduate teachers in Soviet secondary schools (250,000) as in the U.S.A. (50,000); twelve times as many as in Great Britain.

In technicians, the Soviet by 1957 was producing 12½ times the United States total annually: 250,000 against 20,000.

At the tertiary level, over four times as many Soviet students were engaged in higher education, as in Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy combined, i.e., four advanced countries with a total population approximately equal to that of the U.S.S.R.

Just as striking is the “success rate”. Some 80% or more of all students in university or institute graduate in the minimum time; this compares with less than 40% at Sydney and Melbourne universities, and it is to be remembered that the graduation in the technical and scientific faculties in the U.S.S.R. includes advanced studies in the humanities as well as the special or vocational subjects.

All engineering and science graduates need to be at home in a foreign language, and they are required to present a thesis at graduate level in history or literature.

From the 10 year school (i.e. age 7-17) some 1½ million were already graduating yearly by 1958; whilst the universities and institutes are turning out fully qualified scientists and engineers at professional level, at several times the rate of the U.S.A. and Britain combined. And this in a country over 80% illiterate in 1918.

However, despite these great advances, important further developments are at present taking place.

Education and Productive Labour

A national discussion revealed that the kind of school operating in the Soviet was too academic in its emphasis. It was producing young men and women, some of whom considered a university career the only suitable one, and expressed a scornful attitude towards physical labour.

Furthermore, it was disclosed that many young people, in order to make sure of entry to university on leaving school, were undertaking courses for which they were not suited.

This gap between the schools and life, the posing of mental and manual labour against each other as though they were in opposition, instead of complementary in a socialist society, has led to far-going changes. [13]

The Soviet schools, will, in future, be divided into two stages. In the first stage all children from age 7 to 15 or 16, for an eight-year period, will attend school full time: during this period there will be some increase in practical and manual subjects.

In the second, from 15 to 16, for a further three or four years, most pupils will work part-time in industry, receiving skilled instruction in the factory or on the collective farm; the remaining time being spent at school completing their secondary education. In the factory, their work in production will be paid for at apprentice rates, on the collective farm at workday unit rates; they will receive instruction from the most skilled workers, and by the time they finish their secondary education they will already be trained tradesmen or specialists, with a general secondary education similar to but beyond matriculation levels in Australia. In many cases the secondary education during this period will be received from evening or correspondence schools, and, in all cases, will have a wide and deep cultural content.

After completing secondary education, at about age 18 or 19, students are to be encouraged to proceed to higher education at evening or correspondence schools as the first or preparatory stages for universities or institutes. Those admitted to universities for full-time studies will gain their places, after passing public examinations, partly on the report of public bodies (trade unions etc.) who would recommend those who had displayed high qualities of workmanship, citizenship and suitability. It appears that approximately 80% of all places in universities are to be gained in this way, the remaining 20% being open to the most brilliant matriculants direct from school, i.e. students who are likely to excel in research and higher education.

Already, it has become clear, where the methods of combining education more closely with productive labour have been tested, that students entering university are not only people whom life and experience in production have given a sound working class background, but are also more mature in their approach to tertiary education, and surer of their vocational interest. In general, they gain far more from their period in university or institute than pupils proceeding directly from school.

This trend will undoubtedly grow more pronounced as the system becomes general, and the schools, colleges and universities generally cease to stand aside from production and become integrally connected with it. So education will prepare young people for communism when labour and culture will become necessities of life for all.

Within this general pattern, various types of education partly vocational partly general, will exist side by side. In some cases factories and farms will establish their own schools, whilst some of the large schools are already preparing to set up workshops or factories to engage in actual production. Agricultural high schools and colleges will take the form, in many cases, of large State farms. Such institutions should find it possible to engage in research and assist the raising of general standards. Other schools will carry on the technical training of their pupils in conjunction with neighbouring factories and collective or State farms.

The problem of full education of a whole community as it moves towards communism, raises issues that go to the very heart of communist theory and practice. The new proposals set out to provide a unified experience for young people in their lives as producers of material goods, and by degrees to put an end to the contradictions that had become apparent between mental labour (of students and intellectuals) divorced from actual production and the manual labour of industrial workers.

The harmonious relationship between education and production, paves the way for a new synthesis, the establishment, in terms of modern industrial society, of the place of young people as organic members of the social unit of production.

Such a system is on the way to producing balanced personalities, with a scientific outlook, a humanist culture and a communist ethic, in which the welfare of the collective is harmoniously combined with that of its individual members.

These developments, enabling children and youth to develop normally in society must be of tremendous interest to parents and teachers faced with the problems of youth upbringing in capitalist countries. The new experiences will have significance, for education everywhere, not only in the socialist world.

They certainly offer a glowing contrast to the deterioration of educational standards in capitalist society, and set standards that all interested in education and child and youth welfare will be anxious to have paralleled in Australia.

The Way Forward

It would be utopian to expect that all of the benefits of education under socialism could be made available in the class-society of capitalism.

The wealthy classes will undoubtedly insist on the maintenance of private schools, providing special privileges and opportunities for those able to afford them. Such schools will continue, quite consciously, to maintain and expand class privilege and the class structure of society. Similarly, religious groupings will maintain special schools under denominational control. Furthermore, it would be naive to expect that the capitalist State would willingly abandon the principle of “education on the cheap”, for the majority; especially as the alternative of a first-class education for all citizens would involve a major re-allocation of national finance, in which the needs of schools and universities would have a higher priority at the expense of record profits for monopolies.

The collective, co-operative spirit of living that is part of the lifeblood of socialist society, permeates all socialist institutions including the schools and universities; whilst the individualist self-seeking profit-making motivation system, tends to corrupt and vitiate all aspects of life under capitalism, including, to some extent, the system of education and child upbringing. If, for example, there is profit to be made from debased comic books or films stimulating anti-social eroticism and crime amongst children and youth, such material is likely to continue to form part of the cultural background of young people in capitalist society.

Nonetheless, it is part of the lesson of history, that mass demand and mass struggle can win improvements in social legislation, especially when the rulers are themselves divided. Most educationists, including those whose outlook is completely identified with capitalist society, realise the need to increase the

percentage of citizens receiving full tertiary education; similarly with many of the private owners of industry, who realise the place of science in modern industry and agriculture.

A strong public opinion calling for educational advance is thus being created. It is the task of the working class, of the labour movement as a whole, to give drive and direction to the movement, to place upon it the stamp of working class and socialist ideas.