Soviet education is the best in the world. Soviet education was the best in the world

Soviet education in certain circles is considered to be the best in the world. In the same circles, it is customary to consider the modern generation as lost - they say, these young “victims of the Unified State Exam” cannot stand any comparison with us, technical intellectuals who went through the crucible of Soviet schools...

Of course, the truth lies far away from these stereotypes. If a certificate of completion of a Soviet school is a sign of the quality of education, it is only in the Soviet sense. Indeed, some people who studied in the USSR amaze us with the depth of their knowledge, but at the same time many others amaze us no less strongly with the depth of their ignorance. Not knowing Latin letters, not being able to add simple fractions, not physically understanding the simplest written texts - alas, for Soviet citizens this was the norm.

At the same time, Soviet schools also had undeniable advantages - for example, teachers then had the opportunity to freely give bad grades and leave “not performing” students for the second year. This whip created the mood necessary for studying, which is so lacking in many modern schools and universities now.

I smoothly move on to the essence of the post. Through the efforts of a team of authors, a long-overdue article on the pros and cons of Soviet education was created on the Patriot's Handbook. I am publishing this article here and ask you to join in the discussion - and, if necessary, even supplement and correct the article directly on the “Directory”, fortunately this is a wikiproject that is available for editing by everyone:

This article examines the Soviet education system from the point of view of its advantages and disadvantages. The Soviet system followed the task of educating and shaping individuals worthy of realizing for future generations the main national idea of ​​the Soviet Union - a bright communist future. This task included not only the teaching of knowledge about nature, society and the state, but also the education of patriotism, internationalism and morality.

== Pros (+) ==

Mass character. During Soviet times, for the first time in Russian history, almost universal literacy was achieved, close to 100%.

Of course, even in the era of the late USSR, many people of the older generation had only 3-4 years of education behind them, because not everyone was able to complete a full course of schooling due to the war, mass relocations, and the need to go to work early. However, almost all citizens learned to read and write.
For mass education, we must also thank the tsarist government, which in the 20 pre-revolutionary years practically doubled the level of literacy in the country - by 1917, almost half of the population was already literate. The Bolsheviks, as a result, received a huge number of literate and trained teachers, and they only had to double the share of literate people in the country for the second time, which they did.

Wide access to education for national and linguistic minorities. During the process of so-called indigenization, the Bolsheviks in the 1920s and 1930s. for the first time introduced education in the languages ​​of many small peoples of Russia (often, simultaneously creating and introducing alphabets and writing for these languages). Representatives of the outlying peoples were given the opportunity to learn to read and write, first in their native language, and then in Russian, which accelerated the elimination of illiteracy.

On the other hand, this same indigenization, partially curtailed in the late 1930s, managed to make a significant contribution to the future collapse of the USSR along national borders.

High accessibility for the majority of the population (universal free secondary education, very common higher education). In Tsarist Russia, education was associated with class restrictions, although as its availability grew, these restrictions weakened and eroded, and by 1917, if they had money or special talents, representatives of any class could receive a good education. With the Bolsheviks coming to power, class restrictions were finally lifted. Primary and then secondary education became universal, and the number of students in higher educational institutions increased manifold.

Highly motivated students, public respect for education. Young people in the USSR really wanted to study. Under Soviet conditions, when private property rights were seriously limited and entrepreneurial activity was practically suppressed (especially after the closure of artels under Khrushchev), getting an education was the main way to advance in life and start making good money. There were few alternatives: not everyone had enough health for Stakhanov’s manual labor, and for a successful party or military career it was also necessary to increase their level of education (illiterate proletarians were recklessly recruited only in the first decade after the revolution).

Respect for the work of teachers and lecturers. At least until the 1960s and 1970s, while the USSR was eliminating illiteracy and establishing a system of universal secondary education, the teaching profession remained one of the most respected and in demand in society. Relatively literate and capable people became teachers, moreover, motivated by the idea of ​​​​bringing education to the masses. In addition, it was a real alternative to hard work on a collective farm or in production. A similar situation was in higher education, where, in addition, during Stalin’s time there were very good salaries (already under Khrushchev, however, the salaries of the intelligentsia were reduced to the level of workers and even lower). They wrote songs about the school and made films, many of which entered the golden fund of Russian culture.

Relatively high level of initial training of those entering higher education institutions. The number of students in the RSFSR at the end of the Soviet era was at least two times lower than in modern Russia, and the proportion of young people in the population was higher. Accordingly, with a similar population size in the RSFSR and in the modern Russian Federation, the competition for each place in Soviet universities was twice as high as in modern Russian ones, and as a result, the contingent recruited there was of higher quality and more capable. It is precisely this circumstance that is primarily associated with the complaints of modern teachers about the sharp drop in the level of training of applicants and students.

Very high quality higher technical education. Soviet physics, astronomy, geography, geology, applied technical disciplines and, of course, mathematics were, without a doubt, at the highest world level. The huge number of outstanding discoveries and technical inventions of the Soviet era speaks for itself, and the list of world-famous Soviet scientists and inventors looks very impressive. However, here too we must say special thanks to pre-revolutionary Russian science and higher education, which served as a solid basis for all these achievements. But it must be admitted that the Soviet Union managed - even despite the massive emigration of Russian scientists after the revolution - to fully revive, continue and develop at the highest level the domestic tradition in the field of technical thought, natural and exact sciences.

Satisfying the colossal state demand for new personnel in the context of a sharp growth in industry, army and science (thanks to large-scale state planning). During the course of mass industrialization in the USSR, several new industries were created and the scale of production in all industries was significantly increased, several times and tens of times. For such impressive growth, it was necessary to train many specialists capable of working with the most modern technology. In addition, it was necessary to make up for significant personnel losses as a result of revolutionary emigration, civil war, repressions and the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet education system successfully trained many millions of specialists in hundreds of specialties - thanks to this, the most important state tasks related to the survival of the country were solved.

Relatively high scholarships. The average stipend in the late USSR was 40 rubles, while an engineer's salary was 130-150 rubles. That is, scholarships reached about 30% of salaries, which is significantly higher than in the case of modern scholarships, which are large enough only for excellent students, graduate students and doctoral students.

Developed and free out-of-school education. In the USSR there were thousands of palaces and houses of pioneers, stations for young technicians, young tourists and young naturalists, and many other circles. Unlike most of today's clubs, sections and electives, Soviet out-of-school education was free.

The best sports education system in the world. From the very beginning, the Soviet Union paid great attention to the development of physical education and sports. If sports education was just emerging in the Russian Empire, then in the Soviet Union it reached the forefront in the world. The success of the Soviet sports system is clearly visible in the results at the Olympic Games: the Soviet team has consistently taken first or second place at every Olympics since 1952, when the USSR began participating in the international Olympic movement.

== Cons (−) ==

Low quality of humanities education due to ideological restrictions and cliches. Almost all humanitarian and social disciplines in schools and universities of the USSR were, to one degree or another, loaded with Marxism-Leninism, and during Stalin’s life, also with Stalinism. The concept of teaching the history of Russia and even the history of the ancient world was based on the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)”, according to which the entire world history was presented as a process of maturing prerequisites for the revolution of 1917 and the future construction of a communist society. In the teaching of economics and politics, Marxist political economy occupied the main place, and in the teaching of philosophy - dialectical materialism. These directions in themselves are worthy of attention, but they were declared to be the only true and correct ones, and all others were declared either their predecessors or false directions. As a result, huge layers of humanities knowledge either dropped out of the Soviet education system altogether, or were presented in doses and exclusively in a critical manner, as “bourgeois science.” Party history, political economy and mathematics were compulsory subjects in Soviet universities, and in the late Soviet period they were among the least liked by students (as a rule, they were far from the main specialty, divorced from reality and at the same time relatively difficult, so their study was mainly came down to memorizing stereotyped phrases and ideological formulations).

Denigration of history and distortion of moral guidelines. In the USSR, school and university teaching of history was characterized by denigration of the Tsarist period in the history of the country, and in the early Soviet period this denigration was much more widespread than the post-perestroika denigration of Soviet history. Many pre-revolutionary statesmen were declared “servants of tsarism”, their names were erased from history textbooks, or mentioned in a strictly negative context. Conversely, outright robbers, like Stenka Razin, were declared “national heroes,” and terrorists, like the assassins of Alexander II, were called “freedom fighters” and “advanced people.” In the Soviet concept of world history, a lot of attention was paid to all kinds of oppression of slaves and peasants, all kinds of uprisings and rebellions (of course, these are also important topics, but by no means less important than the history of technology and military affairs, geopolitical and dynastic history, etc.) . The concept of “class struggle” was implanted, according to which representatives of the “exploiting classes” were to be persecuted or even destroyed. From 1917 to 1934 history was not taught at universities at all, all history departments were closed, traditional patriotism was condemned as “great power” and “chauvinism,” and “proletarian internationalism” was implanted in its place. Then Stalin sharply changed course towards the revival of patriotism and returned history to universities, however, the negative consequences of the post-revolutionary denial and distortion of historical memory are still felt: many historical heroes were forgotten, for several generations of people the perception of history is sharply divided into periods before and after the revolution, many good traditions have been lost.

The negative impact of ideology and political struggle on academic staff and individual disciplines. As a result of the revolution and civil war in 1918–1924. About 2 million people were forced to emigrate from the RSFSR (the so-called white emigration), and most of the emigrants were representatives of the most educated segments of the population, including a very large number of scientists, engineers and teachers who emigrated. According to some estimates, about three quarters of Russian scientists and engineers died or emigrated during that period. However, already before the First World War, Russia occupied first place in Europe in terms of the number of students at universities, so that there were a lot of specialists trained in tsarist times left in the country (although, for the most part, quite young specialists). Thanks to this, the acute shortage of teaching staff that arose in the USSR was successfully filled in most industries by the end of the 1920s (partly due to an increase in the workload on the remaining teachers, but mainly due to the intensive training of new ones). Subsequently, however, the Soviet scientific and teaching cadres were seriously weakened during the repressions and ideological campaigns carried out by the Soviet government. The persecution of genetics is widely known, because of which Russia, which at the beginning of the 20th century was one of the world leaders in biological science, by the end of the 20th century became a laggard. Due to the introduction of ideological struggle into science, many outstanding scientists of the humanities and social sciences suffered (historians, philosophers and economists of a non-Marxist persuasion; linguists who participated in discussions on Marrism, as well as Slavists; Byzantologists and theologians; orientalists - many of them were shot on false charges espionage for Japan or other countries because of their professional connections), but representatives of the natural and exact sciences also suffered (the case of the mathematician Luzin, the Pulkovo case of astronomers, the Krasnoyarsk case of geologists). As a result of these events, entire scientific schools were lost or suppressed, and in many areas a noticeable lag behind world science arose. The culture of scientific discussion was overly ideologized and politicized, which, of course, had a negative impact on education.

Restrictions on access to higher education for certain groups of the population. In fact, opportunities for higher education in the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s. The so-called disenfranchised were deprived, including private traders, entrepreneurs (using hired labor), representatives of the clergy, and former police officers. Children from families of nobles, merchants, and clergy often encountered obstacles when trying to obtain higher education in the pre-war period. In the Union republics of the USSR, representatives of titular nationalities received preferences when entering universities. In the post-war period, a percentage rate for admission to the most prestigious universities was secretly introduced in relation to Jews.

Restrictions on familiarization with foreign scientific literature, restrictions on international communication of scientists. If in the 1920s. In Soviet science, the pre-revolutionary practice continued, involving very long foreign business trips and internships for scientists and the best students, constant participation in international conferences, free correspondence and an unlimited supply of foreign scientific literature, then in the 1930s. the situation began to change for the worse. Especially in the period after 1937 and before the war, the presence of foreign connections simply became dangerous for the lives and careers of scientists, since many were then arrested on trumped-up charges of espionage. At the end of the 1940s. During the ideological campaign to combat cosmopolitanism, it came to the point that references to the works of foreign authors began to be regarded as a manifestation of “adulation to the West,” and many were forced to accompany such references with criticism and stereotyped condemnation of “bourgeois science.” The desire to publish in foreign journals was also condemned, and, most unpleasantly, almost half of the world's leading scientific journals, including publications like Science and Nature, were removed from public access and sent to special storage facilities. This “turned out to be beneficial to the most mediocre and unprincipled scientists,” for whom “massive separation from foreign literature made it easier to use it for hidden plagiarism and pass it off as original research.” As a result, in the middle of the 20th century, Soviet science, and after it education, in conditions of limited external relations, they began to fall out of the global process and “stew in their own juice”: it became much more difficult to distinguish world-class scientists from compilers, plagiarists and pseudoscientists, many achievements of Western science remained unknown or little-known in the USSR. “Soviet science was corrected only partially, as a result there is still a problem of low citation of Russian scientists abroad and insufficient familiarity with advanced foreign research.

Relatively low quality of teaching foreign languages. If in the post-war period the West established the practice of involving foreign native speakers in teaching, as well as the practice of large-scale student exchanges, in which students could live in another country for several months and learn the spoken language in the best possible way, then the Soviet Union lagged significantly behind in teaching foreign languages ​​from -due to the closed borders and the almost complete absence of emigration from the West to the USSR. Also, for censorship reasons, the entry of foreign literature, films, and song recordings into the Soviet Union was limited, which did not at all contribute to the study of foreign languages. Compared to the USSR, in modern Russia there are much more opportunities for learning languages.

Ideological censorship, autarky and stagnation in art education in the late USSR. Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and the early USSR were among the world leaders and trendsetters in the field of artistic culture. Avant-garde painting, constructivism, futurism, Russian ballet, the Stanislavsky system, the art of film editing - this and much more aroused admiration from the whole world. However, by the end of the 1930s. the variety of styles and trends gave way to the dominance of socialist realism imposed from above - in itself it was a very worthy and interesting style, but the problem was the artificial suppression of alternatives. Reliance on one's own traditions was proclaimed, while attempts at new experiments began to be condemned in many cases (“Confusion instead of music”), and the borrowing of Western cultural techniques was subject to restrictions and persecution, as in the case of jazz and then rock music. Indeed, not in all cases, experiments and borrowings were successful, but the scale of condemnation and restrictions was so inadequate that it led to the disincentive of innovation in art and to the gradual loss of world cultural leadership by the Soviet Union, as well as to the emergence of “underground culture” in the USSR.

Degradation of education in the field of architecture, design, urban planning. During the period of Khrushchev’s “fight against architectural excesses,” the entire system of architectural education, design and construction suffered seriously. In 1956, the USSR Academy of Architecture was reorganized and renamed the USSR Academy of Construction and Architecture, and in 1963 it was completely closed (until 1989). As a result, the era of the late USSR became a time of decline in design and a growing crisis in the field of architecture and the urban environment. The architectural tradition was interrupted and was replaced by the soulless construction of microdistricts inconvenient for life; instead of a “bright future” in the USSR, a “gray present” was built.

Canceling the teaching of fundamental classical disciplines. In the Soviet Union, such an important subject as logic was excluded from the school curriculum (it was studied in pre-revolutionary gymnasiums). Logic was returned to the curriculum and a textbook was published only in 1947, but in 1955 it was removed again, and, with the exception of physics and mathematics lyceums and other elite schools, logic is still not taught to schoolchildren in Russia. Meanwhile, logic is one of the foundations of the scientific method and one of the most important subjects, providing skills in distinguishing between truth and lies, conducting discussions and resisting manipulation. Another important difference between the Soviet school curriculum and the pre-revolutionary gymnasium curriculum was the abolition of teaching Latin and Greek. Knowledge of these ancient languages ​​may seem useless only at first glance, because almost all modern scientific terminology, medical and biological nomenclature, and mathematical notation are based on them; In addition, learning these languages ​​is good mental gymnastics and helps develop discussion skills. Several generations of outstanding Russian scientists and writers who worked before the revolution and in the first decades of the USSR were brought up in the tradition of classical education, which included the study of logic, Latin and Greek, and the almost complete rejection of all this hardly had a positive effect on education in the USSR and Russia.

Problems with the education of moral values, partial loss of the educational role of education. The best Soviet teachers always insisted that the purpose of education is not only the transfer of knowledge and skills, but also the education of a moral, cultural person. In many ways, this problem was solved in the early USSR - then it was possible to solve the problem of mass child homelessness and juvenile delinquency that arose after the civil war; managed to raise the cultural level of significant masses of the population. However, in some respects, Soviet education not only failed to cope with the education of morality, but in some ways even aggravated the problem. Many educational institutions of pre-revolutionary Russia, including church education and institutes for noble maidens, directly set themselves the main task of raising a moral person and preparing him either for the role of a spouse in the family, or for the role of “brother” or “sister” in the community of believers. Under Soviet rule, all such institutions were closed, specialized analogues were not created for them, moral education was entrusted to the ordinary mass school, separating it from religion, which was replaced by the propaganda of atheism. The moral goal of Soviet education was no longer the education of a worthy member of the family and community, as it was before, but the education of a member of the work collective. For the accelerated development of industry and science, this may have been a good thing. However, such an approach could hardly solve the problems of the high level of abortion (for the first time in the world legalized in the USSR), the high level of divorce and the general degradation of family values, the sharp transition to small children, growing mass alcoholism and the extremely low life expectancy of men in the late USSR by world standards.

Almost complete elimination of home education. Many outstanding figures of Russian history and culture received home education instead of school, which proves that such education can be very effective. Of course, this form of education is not available to everyone, but either to relatively wealthy people who can hire teachers, or simply to intelligent and educated people who can devote a lot of time to their children and personally go through the school curriculum with them. However, after the revolution, home education in the USSR was by no means encouraged (largely for ideological reasons). The external education system in the USSR was introduced in 1935, but for a long time it was designed almost exclusively for adults, and a full-fledged opportunity for external education for schoolchildren was introduced only in 1985–1991.

Non-alternative co-education of boys and girls. One of the dubious Soviet innovations in education was the compulsory co-education of boys and girls instead of the pre-revolutionary separate education. Then this step was justified by the struggle for women's rights, the lack of personnel and premises for the organization of separate schools, as well as the widespread practice of co-education in some leading countries of the world, including the USA. However, the latest research in the United States shows that separate education increases student results by 10-20%. Everything is quite simple: in joint schools, boys and girls are distracted by each other, and noticeably more conflicts and incidents arise; Boys, right up to the last grades of school, lag behind girls of the same age in education, since the male body develops more slowly. On the contrary, with separate education, it becomes possible to better take into account the behavioral and cognitive characteristics of different sexes to improve performance; adolescents’ self-esteem depends to a greater extent on academic performance, and not on some other things. It is interesting that in 1943, separate education for boys and girls was introduced in cities, which, after the death of Stalin, was again eliminated in 1954.

The system of orphanages in the late USSR. While in Western countries in the middle of the 20th century they began to close orphanages en masse and place orphans in families (this process was generally completed by 1980), in the USSR the system of orphanages was not only preserved, but even degraded compared to pre-war times. Indeed, during the struggle against homelessness in the 1920s, according to the ideas of Makarenko and other teachers, the main element in the re-education of former street children was labor, while pupils of labor communes were given the opportunity to self-govern in order to develop skills of independence and socialization. This technique gave excellent results, especially considering that before the revolution, civil war and famine, most street children still had some experience of family life. However, later, due to the ban on child labor, this system was abandoned in the USSR. In the USSR by 1990, there were 564 orphanages, the level of socialization of orphanages was low, and many former orphanages ended up among the criminals and marginalized. In the 1990s. the number of orphanages in Russia almost tripled, but in the second half of the 2000s the process of their liquidation began, and in the 2010s. it is already close to completion.

Degradation of the system of secondary vocational education in the late USSR. Although in the USSR the working man was extolled in every possible way and blue-collar professions were promoted, by the 1970s. The system of secondary vocational education in the country began to clearly degrade. “If you do poorly at school, you’ll go to a vocational school!” (vocational technical school) - this is what parents told careless schoolchildren. They took into vocational schools those students who had failed and failed to enter universities, and juvenile criminals were forcibly placed there, and all this against the backdrop of a comparative surplus of specialist workers and the weak development of the service sector due to the lack of developed entrepreneurship (that is, alternatives in employment, as now, then there were no was). Cultural and educational work in vocational schools turned out to be poorly done; “vocational school students” began to be associated with hooliganism, drunkenness and a general low level of development. The negative image of vocational education in blue-collar occupations still persists in Russia, although qualified turners, mechanics, milling operators, and plumbers are now among the highly paid professions, the representatives of which are in short supply.

Insufficient education of critical thinking among citizens, excessive unification and paternalism. Education, like the media and Soviet culture in general, instilled in citizens faith in a powerful and wise party that leads everyone and cannot lie or make major mistakes. Of course, faith in the strength of one’s people and state is an important and necessary thing, but in order to support this faith one cannot go too far, systematically suppress the truth and harshly suppress alternative opinions. As a result, when, during the years of perestroika and glasnost, these very alternative opinions were given freedom, when previously suppressed facts about the history and modern problems of the country began to emerge en masse, huge masses of citizens felt deceived, lost confidence in the state and in everything that they were taught in school in many humanitarian subjects. Finally, citizens were unable to resist outright lies, myths and media manipulation, which ultimately led to the collapse of the USSR and the deep degradation of society and the economy in the 1990s. Alas, the Soviet educational and social system failed to instill a sufficient level of caution, critical thinking, tolerance for alternative opinions, and a culture of discussion. Also, late-Soviet education did not help to instill in citizens sufficient independence, the desire to personally solve their problems, and not wait for the state or someone else to do it for you. All this had to be learned from the bitter post-Soviet experience.

== Conclusions (−) ==

In assessing the Soviet education system, it is difficult to come to a single and comprehensive conclusion due to its inconsistency.

Positive points:

Complete elimination of illiteracy and provision of universal secondary education
- World leadership in the field of higher technical education, in the natural and exact sciences.
- The key role of education in ensuring industrialization, victory in the Great Patriotic War and scientific and technological achievements in the post-war period.
- High prestige and respect for the teaching profession, high level of motivation of teachers and students.
- High level of development of sports education, widespread encouragement of sports activities.
- The emphasis on technical education made it possible to solve the most important problems for the Soviet state.

Negative points:

Lagging behind the West in the field of humanities education due to the negative influence of ideology and the foreign policy situation. The teaching of history, economics and foreign languages ​​was especially hard hit.
- Excessive unification and centralization of school and, to a lesser extent, university education, coupled with its small contacts with the outside world. This led to the loss of many successful pre-revolutionary practices and to a growing lag behind foreign science in a number of areas.
- Direct blame for the degradation of family values ​​and the general decline of morals in the late USSR, which led to negative trends in the development of demography and social relations.
- Insufficient education of critical thinking among citizens, which led to the inability of society to effectively resist manipulation during the information war.
- Art education suffered from censorship and high ideologization, as well as from obstacles to the development of foreign techniques; one of the most important consequences of this is the decline of design, architecture and urban planning in the late USSR.
- That is, in its humanitarian aspect, the Soviet education system ultimately not only did not help solve the key tasks of preserving and strengthening the state, but also became one of the factors in the moral, demographic and social decline of the country. Which, however, does not negate the impressive achievements of the USSR in the field of humanities and art.

PS. By the way, about logic. A textbook of logic, as well as other entertaining materials on the art of civilized discussion, can be found here.

Soviet education, as we know, was the best in the world, and was very popular. I think Russian should be recognized as the second (if not the first in number) international language. Nowadays, foreign specialists with excellent knowledge of the Russian language work in many countries around the world. When asked where from: “I studied in the USSR.” The Soviet Union raised a generation of specialists of whom many countries are proud. Doctors, teachers, engineers, architects - for us these are ordinary workers, but in the countries of the East, Africa, Brazil, etc. they are very respected specialists with high salaries and position in society.

They were accustomed to study and be trained from birth - proof of this is the many published books that are cheap in price and invaluable in content, a huge number of clubs and sections during school years, the development of a lack of ingenuity and resourcefulness (the ability to replace a missing item with cash and make whatever whatever). When foreign citizens came to study in 5-6 years, they completely mastered, if not all the wisdom, then certainly part of our national understanding.

In the world of science, Messenger of Knowledge, World Pathfinder, Inventor and Innovator, Science and Life, Science and Technology - all these magazines popularize science and tell the laws of nature, physics, and technology in an accessible language. Even high school students enjoyed reading them.

History of Russian tea. New experiments in far vision. — Underwater radio. — New English “directional” radio stations. News about the expedition of Professor I. I. Vavilov. — Use of thermal energy of the oceans. — The mechanism of egg laying by silkworms. Questions of the universe and interplanetary communications. — About the flight to the moon. — About the telescope. - About comets. — About the principle of relativity. - Atoms and molecules. — Light and its distribution. — About the phenomena of thunderstorms. — Study of chemistry. — Questions of biology. - Speech and thinking. — “Acmeism.” — Study of literature of the past. — Internal combustion engines and turbines.- these are the topics of the 4th issue of the journal Bulletin of Knowledge for 1927.

Concepts such as innovation and invention were widespread and encouraged in production. A creative approach to work was welcomed, in which each employee sought to simplify and make the work process more perfect.

In the film “Rain in a Strange City”, love experiences unfold in parallel with the labor process of the main character, during which a new idea is born - rationalization.

Rational proposal is the abbreviated name for innovation in the labor process. The adopted rationalization proposals made the work process more improved - faster, less expensive, and therefore more profitable. Creative teams were created at the factories, which competed with each other to make more innovation proposals.

In order to further develop the mass technical creativity of workers, the All-Union Society of Inventors and Innovators (VOIR) was created in 1958. Its tasks included the development of the rationalization and invention movement - lectures were given, competitions were held and experience was widely exchanged - that is, employees of one enterprise were sent to another similar enterprise and adopted work skills from each other. They moved both within the country and abroad. Going on a foreign business trip to exchange experiences was the height of luxury.

There was a list of regulations regulating relations in this direction - Methodology (basic provisions) for determining the economic efficiency of using new technology, inventions and rationalization proposals in the national economy (approved by the Decree of the State Committee for Science and Technology, the State Planning Committee of the USSR, the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and the State Committee for Inventions dated February 14, 1977), Regulations, instructions and clarifications and one of the most important for employee - Regulations on bonuses for promoting invention and rationalization (approved by a resolution of the USSR State Committee for Labor of June 23, 1983).

Rewards were determined based on the amount of annual savings achieved from implementing the proposal. The holiday “Inventor and Innovator Day” was celebrated annually on the last Saturday of June. On this day, the USSR Academy of Sciences selected the best inventions and innovation proposals made over the past year and awarded the best with state awards, prizes and honorary titles “Honored Inventor of the Republic” and “Honored Innovator of the Republic.”

It was beneficial for the country to raise smart citizens and encourage innovation. This is a guarantee of the country's development.

What made the Soviet education system so unique?

The Soviet system was recognized as one of the best models of education throughout the world. How was it different from the others and what was its advantage? To begin with, a short excursion into history.

The secret weapon of the Bolsheviks

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite. The country, whose economic and demographic position was undermined by the bloodiest of wars, spent a little more than a dozen years making a space breakthrough, which the most economically powerful power that was not at all damaged in the war was not capable of. In the context of the Cold War with the USSR and the arms race, the United States perceived this fact as a national shame.

The US Congress created a special commission with the task of finding out: “Who is to blame for the national shame of the United States?” After the conclusions of this commission, the secret weapon of the Bolsheviks was named... the Soviet secondary school.

In 1959, NATO officially described the Soviet education system as an achievement unparalleled in history. According to all the most unbiased estimates, Soviet schoolchildren were much more developed than American ones.

First of all, due to its mass character and accessibility. By 1936, the Soviet Union had become a country of universal literacy. For the first time in the world, conditions have been created so that every child in the country from the age of seven has the opportunity to receive a free education, even if he lives in the taiga, tundra or high in the mountains. The younger generation became completely literate, something that no other country in the world had achieved at that time!

Education to the masses!

The program was uniform throughout the vast territory of the Soviet Union. This allowed any child, the son of a peasant or worker, after graduating from high school, with the help of the workers' faculty system, to enter a university and there show their talents for the benefit of their native country. The Soviet higher education system was the most widespread in the world, because the country set a course for industrialization and was in dire need of highly qualified personnel. The new emerging Soviet intelligentsia are the children of workers and peasants, who later became professors and academicians, artists and performers.

The Soviet educational system, unlike the American one, provided an opportunity for gifted children from the lower social classes to break into the ranks of the intellectual elite and reveal their full potential for the benefit of society.

“All the best for children!”

The Soviet slogan “All the best goes to children!” in the USSR was supported by a serious program of action to educate a new generation of Soviet people. Special children's sanatoriums and pioneer camps were built to improve the health of young citizens, and dozens of types of sports sections and music schools were opened. Children's libraries, Pioneer Houses and Houses of Technical Creativity were built especially for children. Various clubs and sections were opened in the Houses of Culture, where children could develop their talents and realize their potential for free. Children's books on a wide range of topics were published in huge editions, with illustrations made by the best artists.

All this gave the child the opportunity to develop and try himself in a wide variety of hobbies - from sports and music to creativity, artistic or technical. As a result, the graduate of the Soviet school approached the moment of choosing a profession quite consciously - he chose the business that he liked most. The Soviet school had a polytechnic orientation. This is understandable - the power set a course for industrialization, and one should not forget about defense capability either. But, on the other hand, a network of music and art schools, clubs and studios was created in the country, which satisfied the need of the younger generation for music and art classes.

Thus, Soviet education provided a system of social elevators that allowed a person from the very bottom to discover and develop his innate talents, learn and become established in society, or even become its elite. A huge number of factory directors, artists, film directors, professors and academicians in the USSR were children of ordinary workers and peasants.

The public is more important than the personal

But what was the most important thing, without which the education system could not have taken place even with the best organization: a high, noble idea - the idea of ​​​​building a society of the future in which everyone will be happy. Comprehend science, develop - not in order to earn more money in the future for your individual happiness, but in order to serve your country, in order to replenish the treasury of the “universal good” with your contribution. From an early age, children were taught to give - their labor, their knowledge, skills, and abilities for the benefit of their native country. It was an ideology and a personal example: millions of people gave their lives defending their homeland from fascism; parents, without sparing themselves, gave their best at work; teachers, regardless of time, tried to give knowledge and educate the next generation.

The educational process in the Soviet school was built on the basis of communist ideology, which was abolished 70 years after the revolution, and the ideas of collectivism: the public is more important than the personal, conscientious work for the good of society, everyone’s concern for the preservation and increase of public wealth, man is a friend, comrade and brother to man. The younger generation was told from a very early age that the social value of an individual is determined not by official position or material well-being, but by the contribution that he made to the common cause of building a bright future for everyone.

According to System-Vector Psychology by Yuri Burlan, such values ​​are absolutely complementary to ours, in contrast to the Western individualistic mentality. The priority of the public over the personal, collectivism, justice and mercy are the main distinctive features of the Russian worldview. In Soviet schools, for example, it was customary to help weak students. The weaker one was “attached” to the one who was stronger in studies, who was supposed to improve his friend’s studies.

If a person committed an act that was contrary to public morality, he was collectively “worked through”, put “on display” so that he would feel ashamed in front of his comrades, and then bailed out. After all, shame in our mentality is the main regulator of behavior. Unlike in the West, where the regulator of behavior is the law and fear of it.

October stars, pioneer and Komsomol detachments helped unite children on the basis of the highest moral values: honor, duty, patriotism, mercy. A system of counselors was introduced: the best pioneer was appointed as a counselor for the October students, and the best Komsomol member for the pioneers. The leaders were responsible for their squad and its successes to their organization and their comrades. Both older and younger children rallied not by (as is often the case in modern schools), but on the basis of a common noble cause: be it a community cleanup, collecting scrap metal, preparing a holiday concert, or helping a sick comrade study.

Those who didn't have time are late!

After the Soviet Union collapsed, so did the old value systems. The Soviet education system was recognized as overly ideological, and the principles of Soviet education were overly communist, so it was decided to remove all ideology from the school and introduce humanistic and democratic values. We decided that school should provide knowledge, but that a child should be raised in a family.

This decision caused enormous damage to the state and society as a whole. By removing ideology from school, it was completely deprived of its educational functions. It was no longer teachers who taught children life, but on the contrary, children and their rich parents began to dictate their terms to teachers. The education sector has de facto turned into a service sector.

The collapsed ideology also disoriented the parents themselves. What is good and what is bad in the new conditions and circumstances, completely different from the Soviet ones? How to raise children, what principles to follow: the urethral ones “perish yourself, but save your comrade” or the archetypal skin principles “if you want to live, know how to move around”?

Many parents, forced to deal with the problem of making money, had no time for education - they barely had enough strength to ensure survival. Having given the best years of their lives to the state and having experienced the collapse of the values ​​in which they believed, adults, succumbing to their own despair and the influence of Western propaganda, began to teach their children the opposite: that they should live only for themselves and their family, “don’t do good, you will not receive evil” and that in this world it’s every man for himself.

Of course, the change in views, which had tragic consequences for our country, was also influenced by the fact that it came into its own after the Second World War, and in the territory of the former USSR - in the 90s.

In the education system, free (or, in other words, paid for by the state, by common labor) clubs and sections very soon disappeared. Many paid classes appeared, which quickly divided children based on property. The direction of education also changed to the opposite. The value has become not to raise people who are useful to society, but to give the child the tools to get more for themselves in adulthood. And those who couldn’t, found themselves on the sidelines of life.

Do people raised according to this principle become happy? Not always, because the basis of happiness is the ability to exist harmoniously among other people, to have a favorite business, loved people, to be needed. An egoist, by definition, cannot experience the joy of realization among people.

Who are they, the future elite of the country?

From the point of view of system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan, the future intellectual and cultural elite of the country is formed from children who have and. The percentage of such children does not depend on the status and income of the parents. The developed properties of the vector give society a happy person and an excellent professional, realized in his profession for the benefit of people. Undeveloped properties increase the number of psychopathologies.

By developing some and leaving others undeveloped, we are laying a time bomb that is already starting to go off. Teenage suicides, drugs, murders in schools are still a small part of the price to pay for the selfish upbringing, disorientation and underdevelopment of our children.

How to raise the level of school education again?

All children need to be developed and educated. How to do this without unifying, without driving education and upbringing into a Procrustean bed of equalization, taking into account the individual abilities of everyone? An accurate and practical answer to this question is given by the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan.

The problem of teaching and raising children is directly related to the understanding of psychological laws. Parents and teachers must be clearly aware of the processes that occur in the child’s psyche, in a particular school and in society as a whole. This is the only way to influence the current situation. Until there is such an understanding, we will be swimming in the syrup of Western ideas that are alien to us about what education should be. An example of this is the introduction of the Unified State Examination system in school, which does not reveal knowledge and does not contribute to its deep assimilation, but is aimed only at dull memorization of tests.

The secret of effective education lies in every student. This does not mean that we need to completely return to the previous Soviet education system or switch to Western standards and abandon successfully working methods. We just need to bring them under the modern format that system-vector psychology tells us about. Thanks to knowledge about human vectors, it becomes possible to reveal a child’s natural predisposition and potential abilities at a very early age. And then even the most “incapable” student acquires an interest in learning and a desire to absorb knowledge that will help him realize his maximum potential in later life.

We need to return the educational aspect to school. The Soviet school instilled in children basic values ​​in line with our urethral mentality, which is why true citizens and patriots of our country emerged from it. But this is not the only important thing. It is necessary to teach the child to live among other people, interact with them and enjoy being realized in society. And this can only be taught at school, among other people.

When a positive psychological climate is created in the family and at school, the child will grow into a personality, he will realize his potential, and if not, he will be forced to struggle with his environment all his life. If there are children in a school or class who have a difficult life situation or psychological problems, everyone suffers from this. And even if, with the help of elite schools, it is possible to provide some of the children with an elite education, this is not a guarantee that they will be able to be happy in a society torn apart by hostility. It is necessary to create a system that promotes the education and development of all children. Only then can you hope for a happy future for your children.

System-vector psychology tells how to establish communication with a child, create a comfortable microclimate in the family and school, make the class friendly, and raise the level of education and upbringing at school. Register for free introductory online lectures by Yuri Burlan.

Because like this, without fools, the statement formed causes blind rage among Russophobes, irritation among critics of the Soviet period and satisfaction among its admirers. To avoid misunderstandings, I will immediately state that I am an admirer. Therefore, in terms of the Soviet education system, I do not deny it because there were political repressions during the Soviet period. At the very least, such a denial is stupid. But in order not to be like Russophobes and not to refer to the opinion of a certain civilized part of humanity, I will try to substantiate my statement in ways that are accessible to me, an amateur in this field.

To do this, I will pose the questions: what is education and what is the education system, what is their structure and goals, what is their accessibility and results.

Education is the purposeful cognitive activity of people to acquire knowledge, skills, or improve them. It is possible to obtain an education through self-education or through the use of the state education system. As for me, I must admit that I am a supporter of a reasonable symbiosis of these paths.
The state education system includes systems of preschool education, primary school, basic general education (or lower level of secondary (secondary) education), secondary (complete) general education in comprehensive schools and higher-level educational institutions (upper level of secondary (secondary) education) , primary vocational education on the basis of complete secondary school, secondary vocational education, higher vocational education (training of bachelors, specialists, masters) or tertiary education and, finally, postgraduate education - graduate school, doctoral studies.

The most uninteresting part is over. I will only add that bachelors, specialists, masters, as well as test results for testing acquired knowledge, are taken from today’s system, copied from Western models and precisely emphasizing the losing positions in comparison with the Soviet system.

What is the first distinguishing feature of Soviet education? Its commitment. It was possible to come under political repression for refusing to receive an education. Before this, only voluntary education was known.
From the first distinctive feature the second, the most important for the average person, organically followed - the availability of education at all its levels. Moreover, obtaining higher education was encouraged by law, through scholarships and, even with a market element, when the student was additionally financed for the light of the enterprise interested in him.

The student was obliged to reimburse the costs invested in it by working in the acquired specialty, for which it was distributed to enterprises in the profile corresponding to his education. For liberal Russophobes, this distribution is a red rag for the bull. How so? Freedom of choice is infringed! This is the freebie essence of a liberal - getting a free education is ice, but working it out is not ice. Rotten.

Finally, postgraduate education, postgraduate and doctoral studies. Also paid. Also provided with a workplace and verified by an independent, highly qualified, non-corrupt system.

What was the goal of Soviet education? Listen to the former Minister of Education of the Russian Federation Fursenko: “We do not need a creative person, we need a competent consumer.”

These words of his first of all evaluate Soviet education as a successful, harmonious education that managed to create a creative personality.
US President Eisenhower was ahead of him with a brilliant assessment of Soviet education, which he gave him based on the results of the US lagging behind the USSR in the space field. He did not foolishly count the number of Soviet and American Nobel laureates, leaving this absurd activity to the Russophobes of liberalism, but declared the need to adopt the Soviet experience.
Yes, it looks kind of creepy, this is a subjective opinion. Here Gorky is not a laureate, only a nominee, but Brodsky is a laureate. Vasily Aksyonov wrote that Joseph Brodsky is “a completely middle-class writer who was once lucky, as the Americans say, to be “in the right place at the right time.”

But let's leave it at that. Let's talk better about the functional literacy of schoolchildren. We saw what it is like in Russia in the famous interview with Zhirkova. But what is it like for the flagship of the Western world - the USA?

20% of Americans believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth. 17% believe that the Earth orbits the Sun in one day (The Week, January 7, 2005). Only 13% of young Americans able to serve in the military could find Iraq on a map, and 83% could not find Afghanistan, where US troops have been stationed since October 2001. However, only 89% of Americans know where their country is. In general, 55% of Americans patriotically believe that the United States is located in the very center of the Earth. And Ronald Reagan, returning from a trip to Latin America, said: “Compatriots, you will not only be surprised, but also amazed to learn that Latin America is not one country, but several.”

Sad, but not fatal. The US has a different approach to education. It is based on buying brains. The National Academy of Sciences points out a discouraging statistic: For the money it takes a company in the US to hire one engineer, it can hire five engineers in China and 11 engineers in India. In 2004, about 70 thousand engineers were trained in the United States, 600 thousand in China, and 350 thousand in India.

Only here we need to pay attention to the fact that foreign applications to US graduate schools decreased by 28%. In the United States, the number of Chinese graduates fell by 56%, Indians by 51%, and South Koreans by 28% (New York Times, December 21, 2004).

Against this background, accessible, free Soviet education looks like a beacon pointing the right course. The USSR is long gone, but its education system to this day has a beneficial effect on Russia’s position in the world ranking of education. The share of people with tertiary education (all levels) in the country's population aged 25-64 years (2005 data) in Russia is 55%. The closest neighbors in this indicator, Canada and Israel, each have 46%. I hope that Russian education is enough to understand that 25-64 years is the worst Soviet period for acquiring knowledge?

The transition of Russian universities to the Bologna system, which presupposes a four-year course in higher education, was a mistake. This recognition was made by the rector of M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichy, speaking on Wednesday - December 7 - at the III Congress “Innovative Practice: Science Plus Business”, which takes place at the university site.

“I can’t resist saying it again. I consider it a mistake that we made the transition to a four-year education in higher education,” TASS quotes the words of the head of the country’s main university.

Europe, he noted, “has done its job” - it has unified professional standards and built education accordingly. “Unfortunately, we transferred this four-year education, now in some cases it is already three-year, to our higher school,” Sadovnichy said. In his opinion, studies in Russian universities should last five to six years, like in leading Western universities.

It is not entirely clear why the rector did not remember the Soviet system of higher education with the same five or six years. However, the very fact that he even touched on this topic says something. And, first of all, it is possible that the Bologna system, designed to adapt university education in Russia to European standards, does not really justify itself. And there was no point in introducing it.

I said that the transition to the Bologna system was a mistake when they were just beginning to impose this system on us. Further experience both in our country and abroad has quite clearly proven that it is, indeed, extremely harmful for the country and the world. Therefore, I completely agree with Sadovnichy that it must be abolished as soon as possible.

Moreover, now we still have such an opportunity. Because almost all teachers still know how to work in the normal system, and not in the Bologna one. There are methodological materials for such work. But if we miss a whole generation, as happened in Europe, then we risk losing the opportunity to quickly return to a reasonable teaching system. And then we will be forced to recreate it almost from scratch.

“SP”: - What don’t you like about the Bologna two-stage system of higher education?

The main problem is that this system puts, as they say, the cart before the horse. The future bachelor has to memorize practical professional recipes for three or four years, without having any idea about the theoretical foundations of this knowledge. One becomes a master after two years of in-depth study of theory, when a significant part of practical skills has already been half-forgotten. This, of course, leads to a sharp drop in the effectiveness of education, since less is learned in six years than in five years under the classical system.

“SP”: - It turns out that a bachelor’s degree provides an inferior education? As they used to say, “unfinished higher education”?

It turns out like this. But the main thing is not that it is unfinished, but that it has not been started. What is taught in undergraduate courses comes from theory, as I said. And since the theory itself is not taught (the theory is now being taught in graduate schools), much of what is communicated turns out to be incomprehensible. The correct sequence is to start with the basics of the theory, and then gain practical knowledge based on this theory.

“SP”: - What difference does it make if in any case the same document is issued - a diploma of higher education?

According to the Bologna system, this is considered normal. But there is another side to the problem. Because Russian diplomas are beginning to be recognized in the West. And, we know, they show very serious interest in our most talented graduates. But is it then worth spending money and effort so that our best minds leave the country immediately after studying?

“SP”: - Nevertheless, Sadovnichy suggests focusing again on “leading Western universities.” Why?

I think the rector did not refer to the Soviet system solely for ideological reasons. Nowadays it is not customary to mention it. It is generally accepted that everything connected with the Soviet Union was obviously bad.

Otherwise, it is not clear why we, in fact, abandoned the Soviet system and switched to a market system, if it is obviously bad.

The Bologna process is precisely a process of coordinating the interests of different countries. In order to ensure academic mobility of students and teachers. Level up the quality requirements for programs implemented by the university. Switch to a modular system. And each student can formulate his own educational program depending on his interests and the tasks that he sets for himself as tasks of professional development.

In this sense, this is a process of coordinating interests, requirements for the future development of education, as a joint pan-European, but - in general - global.

Two-stage is one of the implementation mechanisms. It assumes that bachelor's degree programs are implemented in the areas of training - namely in the areas of training. And in many countries of the world (primarily developed ones, including the USA), this education, as a rule, is absolutely sufficient to work in most professions. And which does not close, but opens long-term, almost continuous, professional education. In particular, it can be more in-depth in a master’s degree.

“SP”: - Explain?

It doesn’t matter where a person graduated from a university in a certain field of study - in America, Europe, Russia or China - he has certain competencies. And employers understand this.

Nobody prohibits specialty in Russia (five-year higher education - ed.). It is allowed in our country and is classified by law as the second level of higher education, just like a master’s degree. Moreover, many of the world's leading universities already implement integrated six-year programs - bachelor's and master's degrees.

You know, Great Britain did not join the Bologna system at first either. They believed that they already had the best education in the world. But then they quickly realized that the Bologna process is about designing a joint future of education. And there is no point in standing aside. No one will make someone else's past better for their common future.

“SP”: - But our employers quite often treat specialists who have completed a bachelor’s degree with prejudice. They are perceived as dropouts and are refused employment in more or less significant positions. Do you know about this?

Any employer has the right to set certain requirements for one or another workplace. Lack of qualifications? Let him finish his master's degree. It depends on what position you are applying for. Often, higher education is absolutely not necessary. We need workers with secondary vocational education.

In the modern world - the concept of lifelong education. A person changes at least several professions, jobs, etc. throughout his life. And mobility in a working career is a top priority today. In the first three years after graduation, young people change jobs at least two or three times.

“SP”: - Are there statistics on how many of our bachelor’s graduates go on to master’s programs?

So far no more than thirty percent. Moreover, if almost 60% of our bachelor’s programs study at their own expense, then only 15% of our master’s programs study at their own expense. Many people think that they can go to a master’s program later, not necessarily right away. That is, continuing education in a master's program is not such an unambiguous, continuous trajectory.

But if we are talking about integration into the global educational space, then, of course, this mutual recognition, as if agreement to common standards of research quality, is extremely important. In this sense, I am not a supporter of any isolationism. I am a supporter of discussing and designing common requirements in the interests of academic mobility of both students and teachers.