Minister of Education and Science that Russian schools need to return to the best traditions of Soviet education - "the best in the world." According to her, education has lost a lot in recent years, abandoning the conservative line of behavior. Teachers from Yekaterinburg responded to her call. They developed a project according to which it is necessary to return the classical Soviet teaching methods to schools, as well as Soviet textbooks “tested over the years”. An employee of the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Scientific Library, a historian of Russian education, the head of the Humanities Master's program at the University
Lenta.ru: Is it true that Soviet education was the best, like everything else in the USSR?
Lyubzhin A: I didn't notice it. If the opinion about the superiority of Soviet education were at all close to reality, it would be logical to assume that Western countries would have to organize an educational reform in their country, following the example of the USSR. But none of the European states - neither France, nor England, nor Italy - ever thought of borrowing Soviet models. Because they didn't appreciate them.
How about Finland? They say that at one time she borrowed her techniques from us. At the same time, it is believed that today there is no equal in this country in terms of schooling.
I cannot agree that Finland is out of competition. This is due to the peculiarities of local education, which is not designed for high results of individual individuals, but to raise the average level of education of each citizen. They really succeed. First, Finland is a small country. That is, everything is easier to organize there. And secondly, very benign people go to teachers there. So the Finns manage to pull out the guys at the expense of strong teachers, and not at all due to a good program. But at the same time, higher education is seriously sagging there.
Many believe that the structure of Soviet education is rooted in the educational system of Tsarist Russia. How much did we take from there?
Exactly the opposite - Soviet education is the complete antipode of the imperial one. Before the revolution, there were many types of schools in Russia: a classical gymnasium, a real school, a cadet corps, a theological seminary, commercial schools, and so on. Almost everyone who aspired to this could learn. There was a "own" school for all abilities. After 1917, instead of educational diversity, a single type of school began to take root.
Back in 1870, in the book of the Russian historian Afanasy Prokopyevich Shchapov, “Social and Pedagogical Conditions for the Mental Development of the Russian People,” the idea was expressed that the school should be the same for everyone and that it should be based on the natural sciences. What the Bolsheviks did. Comprehensive education has come.
This is bad?
It was the elementary school, where elementary literacy was taught, that fit well into the concept of universal education. It was organized at the level in the USSR. Everything that went on is already a fiction. The secondary school program offered the same set of subjects to everyone, regardless of the abilities or interests of the children. For gifted children, the bar was too low, they were not interested, the school only interfered with them. And the lagging behind, on the contrary, could not cope with the load. In terms of the quality of training, a graduate of a secondary Soviet school was equal to a graduate of the Imperial Higher Primary School. There were such schools in Russia before the revolution. Education in them was based on primary school (from 4 to 6 years, depending on the school) and lasted four years. But this was considered a primitive level of education. And a diploma from a higher primary school did not give access to universities.
Did the level of knowledge fall short?
The main skills of a graduate of a higher primary pre-revolutionary school: reading, writing, counting. In addition, the guys could pick up the beginnings of various sciences - physics, geography ... There were no foreign languages \u200b\u200bbecause the compilers of the programs understood that it would be a fiction.
The preparation of a graduate of the Soviet school was about the same. The Soviet high school student mastered writing, counting, and fragmentary information on other subjects. But this knowledge filled his head like an attic. And in principle, a person interested in the subject could independently assimilate this information in a day or two. Although foreign languages were taught, the graduates practically did not know them. One of the eternal sorrows of the Soviet school is that the students did not know how to apply the knowledge gained within the framework of one discipline to another.
How then did it happen that the "attic" Soviet people invented a space rocket, carried out developments in the nuclear industry?
All the developments that glorified the Soviet Union belong to scientists with pre-revolutionary education. Neither Kurchatov nor Korolyov ever attended a Soviet school. And their peers also never studied in a Soviet school or studied with professors who received pre-revolutionary education. When the inertia weakened, the margin of safety was depleted, then everything fell down. There were no own resources in our education system then, and there are none today.
You said that the main achievement of the Soviet school is the beginning. But many people say that mathematical education was adequately organized in the USSR. This is wrong?
This is true. Mathematics is the only subject in the schools of the Soviet Union that met the requirements of the imperial high school.
Why is she?
The state had a need to make weapons. Besides, mathematics was like an outlet. It was done by people who were disgusted in other scientific fields because of the ideology. Only mathematics and physics could hide from Marxism-Leninism. Therefore, it turned out that the intellectual potential of the country was gradually artificially shifted towards the technical sciences. The humanities were not quoted at all in Soviet times. As a result, the Soviet Union collapsed due to the inability to work with humanitarian technologies, to explain something to the population, to negotiate. Even now we see how monstrously low the level of humanitarian discussion in the country is.
Is it possible to say that the imperial pre-revolutionary education corresponded to international standards?
We have been integrated into the global education system. Graduates of the gymnasium Sophia Fischer (founder of a private women's classical gymnasium) were admitted to any German university without exams. We had a lot of students who studied in Switzerland, Germany. At the same time, they were far from the wealthiest, sometimes vice versa. It is also a factor of national wealth. If we take the lower strata of the population, the standard of living in Imperial Russia slightly exceeded the English, slightly inferior to the American and was on a par with the European. Average salaries are lower, but life here was cheaper.
Today?
In terms of the level of education and the level of knowledge, Russians are uncompetitive in the world. But there was a “lag” during the USSR as well. The historian notes that, unlike other countries, the Soviet elite had the worst education among the intelligentsia. She was inferior not only to academic circles, but also to any where higher education was needed. Unlike the West, where countries were run by graduates of the best universities. And after the collapse of the USSR, the model of Soviet general education ceased to make sense. If the student is not interested, because the subjects were taught superficially and for the sake of show, some kind of social pressure is needed so that the children still study. In the early Soviet period, the very situation in the country forced a person to become a loyal member of society. And then the pressure eased. The scale of requirements crept down. In order not to deal with repeaters, teachers had to deal with pure drawing of grades, and children could quite easily not learn anything. That is, education does not guarantee a career. In other countries, this is practically not the case.
As a mother of a fourth-grader, I get the feeling that today, compared to the Soviet period, they don’t teach at school at all. The child comes home after classes - and the "second shift" begins. We do not just do homework, but study the material that we seem to be learning in the lesson. Friends have the same picture. Is the program really that complicated?
It's just that the school has moved from normal teaching to supervising. In the 1990s, this was a forced step on the part of the pedagogical community. Then the teachers were left in complete poverty. And the method of "do not teach, but ask" for them has become the only way to guaranteed earnings. For tutoring services, their student was sent to a colleague. And he did the same. But when teaching salaries increased in the same Moscow, teachers could no longer and did not want to get rid of this technique. Apparently, it will not work to return them to the former principles of education.
I see from the experience of my nephew that they don’t teach him anything at school and didn’t teach him anything, but they carefully ask about everything. In schools, tutoring is common from the fifth grade, which was not the case in the Soviet school. Therefore, when they check the school and say: the results are good, then you can’t really believe this. In our country, in principle, it is no longer possible to isolate school and tutoring work.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in Russia almost every year there are reforms to improve education. Have there been any positive developments?
Spears broke around important issues, but of the second order. The knowledge test system is very important. But much more important is the program and a set of subjects for study. And we are now thinking about the fact that tougher exams can improve learning. No way. As a result, the difficult exam has only two options: either we must lower the bar so that almost everyone can get a certificate. Or the exam will simply turn into a fiction. That is, we are again returning to the concept of universal education - so that only everyone can receive a secondary education. Is it really necessary for everyone? Approximately 40 percent of the population is capable of mastering a full-fledged secondary education. The imperial school serves as a reference point for me. If we want to cover everyone with “knowledge”, the level of education will naturally be low.
Why, then, in the world, the need for universal secondary education is not only not questioned, but even a new trend has appeared - universal higher education for all?
This is the cost of democracy. If we call simple things higher education - why not? You can call a janitor a cleaning manager, make him the operator of an ultra-complex broom on wheels. But most likely there will be no difference - he will study for about five years or immediately begin to learn how to handle the remote control of this broom right on the spot. Formally, the Institute of Asian and African Countries and the Uryupinsk Steel University grant the same rights. Both of them provide crusts on higher education. But in reality, one graduate will be hired for some jobs, but not the other.
What should parents do if they want to properly teach their child? Where to run, what school to look for?
You need to understand that there is no segregation of schools by programs now. Segregation exists according to what the school has - a pool or a horse. We have top 100 schools that are always at the top of the educational rankings. Today they replace the missing system of secondary education, as they prove their advantage at the Olympiads. But you need to understand that studying there is not easy. They just don't take everyone there. I don't think that anything can be done about the current educational system in Russia. Today, Russian education is a patient in need of a very difficult operation. But in fact, his condition is so fatal that he simply cannot bear any intervention.
Because like this, without fools, the formed statement causes blind fury among Russophobes, irritation among critics of the Soviet period and satisfaction among its admirers. To avoid misunderstandings, I will immediately declare that I am an admirer. Therefore, in terms of the Soviet education system, I do not deny it because political repressions took place in the Soviet period. At the very least, such a denial is stupid. But in order not to become like Russophobes and not to refer to the opinion of a certain civilized part of humanity, I will try to substantiate my assertion using the methods available to me, an amateur in this field.
To do this, I will pose the following questions: what is education and what is the education system, what are their structure and goals, what are their accessibility and results.
Education is a purposeful cognitive activity of people to obtain knowledge, skills, or to improve them. It is possible to get 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 pre-school education, primary school, basic general education (or the lower level of secondary (secondary) education), secondary (complete) general education in a general education school and higher level educational institutions (upper level of secondary (secondary) education) , initial vocational education on the basis of a full secondary school, secondary vocational education, higher vocational education (preparation of bachelors, specialists, masters) or tertiary education and, finally, postgraduate education - postgraduate, doctoral studies.
The most uninteresting part is over. I will only add that bachelors, specialists, masters, as well as test results for testing the acquired knowledge, are taken from today's system, licked from Western models and just emphasizing the losing position compared to the Soviet system.
What is the first distinguishing feature of Soviet education? His obligation. For refusing to receive an education, it was realistic to fall under political repression. Before that, only voluntary education was known.
From the first distinguishing feature organically flowed the second, the most important for the average man in the street - the availability of education at all its levels. Moreover, higher education was encouraged by law, through the payment of scholarships and even with a market element, when the student was additionally funded by the light of an enterprise interested in him.
The student was obliged to compensate for the costs invested in it by working in the acquired specialty, for which he was distributed to enterprises of the profile corresponding to his education. This distribution for liberal Russophobes is a red rag for a bull. How so? Freedom of choice is infringed! That's after all, what a free essence of a liberal - to form for free is ice, but to work 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 purpose of Soviet education? Listen to the ex-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.
He was ahead of him with a brilliant assessment of Soviet education by US President Eisenhower, which he gave him as a result 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 occupation to Russophobes from liberalism, but declared the need to adopt the Soviet experience.
Yes, it looks kind of shady, it's a subjective opinion. Here Gorky is not a laureate, only a nominee, but Brodsky is a laureate. Vasily Aksyonov wrote that Iosif Brodsky is "quite a middle-class writer who was once lucky, as the Americans say, to be" at the right time in the right place ".
But let's leave it. Let's talk about the functional literacy of schoolchildren. What is it like in Russia, we saw in the famous interview with Zhirkova. And what is it like in the flagship of the Western world - the United States?
20% of Americans believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth. 17% believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun in one day (The Week, January 7, 2005). Only 13% of young Americans capable of serving in the army could find Iraq on the map, and 83% did not find Afghanistan, where US troops have been stationed since October 2001. However, only 89% of Americans know where their country is located. 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 amazed to learn that Latin America is not one country, but several."
Sad, but not fatal. In the US, education is different. It is based on buying brains. The US National Academy of Sciences draws attention to a discouraging statistic: With the funds it takes for a company in the US to hire one engineer, it is possible to hire five engineers in China and 11 engineers in India. In 2004, about 70,000 engineers were trained in the United States, 600,000 in China, and 350,000 in India.
Only here it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that foreign applications for US graduate schools decreased by 28%. In the US, the number of Chinese graduating students has fallen 56%, Indians 51% and South Koreans 28% (New York Times, December 21, 2004).
Against this background, affordable free Soviet education looks like a beacon indicating the right course. The USSR has long been gone, but its education system to this day has a beneficial effect on Russia's position in the world ranking table of education. The proportion of people with tertiary education (all levels) in the country's population aged 25-64 (2005 data) in Russia is 55%. The closest neighbors in this indicator, Canada and Israel, have 46% each. I hope that Russian education is enough to understand - is 25-64 years old the best Soviet period for gaining knowledge?
Myth: The Soviet education system was perfect
This myth is actively replicated by the communists and people who are simply fiercely nostalgic for the USSR. In reality, Soviet education was comparatively strong in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering, and sports. However, in most other areas it was comparatively weak, both in comparison with Western counterparts of that era and in comparison with modern education:
History, economics, philosophy and other humanitarian disciplines in the USSR were highly ideologized, their teaching was based on a deeply outdated 19th-century Marxist paradigm, while the latest foreign achievements in these areas were largely ignored - or were presented exclusively in a negative way, as "bourgeois science". In general, the students of Soviet schools and universities formed a rather simplified and distorted humanitarian picture of the world.
Foreign languages in Soviet schools were taught on average at a very low level. Unlike Western countries, in the USSR there were practically no opportunities to invite native teachers, and at the same time access to foreign literature, films and songs in the original language was difficult. Almost no exchange of students was carried out, which allows to seriously raise the level of language proficiency while living abroad.
A rather sad situation developed in art education, architecture and design in the late USSR, which is clearly seen in the deterioration of the architectural appearance of Soviet cities in the 1960s-1980s, as well as in the mass desire of Soviet citizens to buy foreign things - qualitatively. and beautifully made.
If it seems to someone that all these humanitarian areas are not important, then it is worth noting that it was precisely because of the underestimation, because of the insufficient or incorrect development of these areas that the Soviet Union eventually collapsed so easily.
Myth: problems in the education system began in the era of perestroika and the collapse of the USSR
In reality, there were always certain problems in the Soviet education system, and the main crisis phenomena that modern Russia had to deal with began to grow back in the late USSR and were already noticeable in the 1970s and 1980s.
Until the 1960s Soviet education had a key task: to train as many workers, engineers and scientists as possible in order to meet the country's needs for specialists and labor during rapid industrialization, and also to make up for the colossal losses of educated people and skilled workers caused by the civil war, white emigration, the Great Patriotic War, as well as repressions. Moreover, workers and specialists needed to be prepared with a large margin in case of a new war and new human losses (in the same way, duplicate enterprises and production sites were built in the USSR in case of war). In the then conditions of a serious shortage of personnel, any graduates of universities and vocational schools were very quickly "torn off with their hands", arranging for work at various great construction sites, new factories, and design bureaus. A lot of people were lucky, and they got interesting and important jobs, they could make a good career. At the same time, the quality of education was not critical: everyone was in demand, and often they had to finish their studies right at work.
Approximately in the 1960s. the situation has changed. The rate of urbanization and industrial growth in the country has dropped sharply, industry and science have managed to get enough of their staff, and their overproduction in the conditions of a long peaceful period has lost its meaning. At the same time, the number of vocational schools, universities and students had grown sharply by that time, but if earlier they were in super demand, now the state could no longer provide everyone with the same attractive jobs as before. New industries were created in insufficient quantities, in the old ones the key positions were firmly occupied, and the old men of the Brezhnev era were by no means in a hurry to give up their places to the youth.
Actually, it was then, in the last decades of the USSR, that problems in education began to grow, which can be summarized approximately as follows:
A sharp increase in the number of universities and vocational schools, which led to a drop in the average level of students and a drop in the ability of the state to provide everyone with good jobs (the obvious solution would be the development of the service sector, the permission of entrepreneurship in order to create new jobs, the development of self-employment opportunities - but due to its specificity, the Soviet state could not or did not want to take such steps).
The fall of the social role of the teacher and teacher, the decline in salaries in the field of education in the late USSR (if in 1940 the salary in the Soviet education system was 97% of the industry average, then in 1960 it was 79%, and in 1985 it was total 63%.
The growing lag behind the West in a number of disciplines, caused by the closed borders and the ideological interference of the state in science.
These problems were inherited by modern Russia, were partly resolved, partly aggravated.
Myth: Soviet education was better at raising a person
From the point of view of those who are nostalgic for the USSR, Soviet education brought up the Man and the Creator, while modern Russian education brings up the townspeople, consumers and businessmen (it is not entirely clear why the latter are denied the right to be both people and creators).
But is it really so good to bring up people in the USSR?
Soviet education brought up entire generations of alcoholics - from the 1960s to the 1980s. alcohol consumption in the country has more than tripled, as a result of which, since 1964, life expectancy for men has stopped growing in the RSFSR (unlike Western countries), alcohol mortality and alcohol crime have sharply increased.
Soviet education brought up a society of people who, since the late 1960s. ceased to reproduce itself - the number of children per woman fell to less than 2.1, as a result of which the number of subsequent generations became smaller than that of the previous ones. At the same time, the number of abortions in the USSR exceeded the number of children born and amounted to about 4-5 million per year. The number of divorces in the USSR was also colossal, and remains so in Russia to this day.
Soviet education brought up a generation of people who destroyed the USSR and relatively easily abandoned much of what they had been taught before.
Soviet education brought up people who massively joined the ranks of organized crime in the 1980s and 1990s. (and in many ways before).
Soviet education brought up people who easily believed the many charlatans of the times of perestroika and the 1990s: they joined religious sects and neo-fascist organizations, carried their last money into financial pyramids, read with rapture and listened to various freaks-pseudo-scientists, etc.
All this indicates that with the upbringing of a person in the USSR, to put it mildly, not everything was perfect.
Of course, the point here is not only in the education system, but also in other aspects of the social situation. However, Soviet education could not reverse this situation and largely contributed to its formation:
- insufficiently brought up critical thinking;
— the initiative was not sufficiently encouraged;
- Paternalism and excessive reliance on authorities were actively nurtured;
- there was no adequate education in the field of family and marriage;
- ideological framework narrowed the view of the world;
- many negative social phenomena were hushed up, instead of studying them and fighting them.
Myth: Capitalism is the main cause of problems in education
From the point of view of communist-minded critics, the main cause of problems in education is capitalism. We are talking not only about the commercialization of education and the general approach to educating a person, but also about the capitalist structure of society and the economy in general, which is supposedly in a deep crisis, and the crisis in education is just one of the manifestations of this.
The capitalist crisis of society and education can be conceived as a global one or, above all, as an internal Russian one - allegedly, surrounded by enemies and ruined by capitalists, Russia can no longer afford capitalism and capitalist education.
From the point of view of Marxists, the main types of crisis associated with capitalism are the crisis of overproduction and the crisis associated with the lack of resources. The first is caused by the overproduction of goods that consumers cannot or do not want to consume, and the second is the lack of resources to produce and maintain the achieved standard of living in an ever-expanding capitalist economy (resources include land and labor). Both types of crises force the capitalists to reduce the consumption of the population of the country and at the same time start wars - for new markets or for new resources. Now the West is in a state of double crisis, and therefore Russia is in danger - partly because they want to profit from its resources, and partly because it itself has adopted capitalism instead of socialism.
The world crisis does indeed take place, but all these constructions linking it with the opposition of capitalism and socialism, as well as with the problems of education, are rather shaky and dubious.
Firstly, crises of overproduction and lack of resources also take place under socialism - for example, the same overproduction of workers and engineers in the late USSR, or the crisis of the lack of good teachers in foreign languages (more famous examples are the overproduction of tanks and children's shoes in the late USSR). ).
Secondly, in the current global crisis, Russia has a very high chance of resisting, both thanks to the Soviet military heritage (a strong army and military-industrial complex), and thanks to the royal heritage in the form of a vast territory with rich resources.
Thirdly, the way out of the crisis is not necessarily associated with war - the development of technologies can help develop new resources or create new markets. And here there are good chances for both the West and Russia.
It is also worth remembering an obvious fact: the Western education system (of which the Russian system is an offshoot, and after it the Soviet system) was created precisely under capitalism in the era of the New Age. As for the Soviet system, it is a direct continuation of the education system in the late Russian Empire, which was created under capitalism. At the same time, although the education system covered only a part of society by 1917, it quickly grew in scale, and already in the middle of the 19th century Russia had excellent higher and engineering education by world standards, and in the early 1910s. Russia has become the European leader in the number of engineering graduates.
Thus, there is no reason to oppose capitalism and quality education. As for attempts to explain the degradation of education not simply by capitalism, but by capitalism in the stage of crisis, then, as already mentioned, crises also occur under socialism.
Myth: Russian education has changed dramatically compared to the Soviet one
From the point of view of critics, the education reforms have incredibly changed the educational system in Russia and led to its degradation, and only a few last remnants of Soviet education still survive and keep everything afloat.
But is modern Russian education really that far removed from the Soviet one? In fact, for the most part, Soviet education in Russia has been preserved:
In Russia, the same class-lesson system operates as in the USSR (originally borrowed from German schools of the 18th-19th centuries).
The specialization of schools is preserved.
The division of education into primary, complete and incomplete secondary, secondary specialized and higher education is preserved (at the same time, higher education has been largely transferred from 5 years of study to the bachelor's + master's system - 4 + 2 years, but by and large this has not changed much ).
Almost all the same subjects are taught, only a few new ones have been added (at the same time, the programs for some humanitarian subjects have been greatly changed - but, as a rule, for the better).
There is a strong tradition in the teaching of mathematics and science (compared to most other countries).
In general, the same system of assessments and the same system of work of teachers have been preserved, although accountability and bureaucracy have noticeably increased (introduced to improve control and monitoring, but in many respects turned out to be unnecessary and burdensome, for which it is rightly criticized).
The accessibility of education has been preserved and even increased, and although about a third of students are now paid students, a significant part of out-of-school education has also become paid. However, this is nothing new in comparison with the Soviet era: paid education for students and high school students operated in the USSR in 1940-1956.
Most of the school buildings remained the same (and the renovations carried out clearly did not worsen them).
Most of today's Russian teachers were trained back in the USSR or in the 1990s, before the reforms in education.
The Unified State Examination was introduced, which is the most noticeable difference between the Russian system and the Soviet one, but it is worth emphasizing once again that this is not some kind of teaching method, but simply a more objective method of testing knowledge.
Of course, various experimental schools have appeared in Russia in a noticeable number, in which the organization and teaching methods differ to a much greater extent from Soviet models. However, in most cases we are dealing with slightly modified and modernized Soviet-style schools. The same is true for universities, if we exclude frankly profanity "degree-building" institutions (which began to actively close since 2012).
Thus, in general, Russian education continues to follow Soviet patterns, and those people who criticize Russian education, in fact, criticize the Soviet system and the results of its work.
Myth: A return to the Soviet education system will solve all problems
First, as shown above, there were many problems and weaknesses in Soviet education.
Secondly, as shown above, Russian education as a whole is not that far removed from the Soviet one.
Thirdly, the key modern problems of Russian education began in the USSR, and no solutions were found there for these problems.
Fourthly, a number of modern problems are associated with the development of information technologies, which were simply absent in the USSR at such a level, and the Soviet experience will not help here.
Fifth, if we talk about the most successful period of Soviet education (1920s-1950s), since then society has seriously changed, and in our time we have to solve largely different tasks. In any case, it is now impossible to reproduce those socio-demographic conditions in which Soviet successes became possible.
Sixth, education reforms do carry a certain risk, however, conservation of the situation and the rejection of reforms is a sure path to defeat. There are problems and they need to be addressed.
Finally, objective data show that the problems of modern Russian education are largely exaggerated and, with varying degrees of success, are being gradually resolved.
Soviet education in certain circles is considered to be the best in the world. In the same circles, it is customary to consider the current generation as lost - they say, these young "victims of the Unified State Examination" cannot stand any comparison with us, the technical intellectuals who went through the crucible of Soviet schools ...
Of course, the truth lies far away from these stereotypes. A certificate of graduation from a Soviet school, if it is a sign of the quality of education, 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 no less amaze us 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 a variant of the norm.
At the same time, Soviet schools also had undeniable advantages - for example, teachers then had the opportunity to freely give deuces and leave “not pulling” students for the second year. This whip created the mood necessary for study, which is so lacking now in many modern schools and universities.
Let's get right to the point of the post. A long overdue article on the pros and cons of Soviet education was created on the Patriot's Handbook by the efforts of a team of authors. I am publishing this article here and I ask you to join the discussion - and, if necessary, even supplement and correct the article directly on the Directory, since this is a wiki project that is available for editing by everyone:
This article examines the Soviet education system in terms of its advantages and disadvantages. The Soviet system followed the task of educating and shaping a personality worthy of realizing for future generations the main national idea of the Soviet Union - a bright communist future. This task was subordinated not only to the teaching of knowledge about nature, society and the state, but the education of patriotism, internationalism and morality.== Pros (+) ==
Mass character. In Soviet times, for the first time in the history of Russia, almost universal literacy was achieved, close to 100%.
Of course, even in the era of the late USSR, many older people had only 3-4 grades of education behind them, because far from everyone was able to complete a full course of schooling due to the war, mass migrations, and the need to go to work early. However, virtually all citizens learned to read and write.
For mass education, one 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 literate. The Bolsheviks, as a result, received a huge number of literate and trained teachers, and they only had to double the proportion 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 creating and introducing alphabets and writing for these languages along the way). Representatives of the outlying peoples got the opportunity to become literate, first in their native language, and then in Russian, which accelerated the elimination of illiteracy.
On the other hand, this very indigenization, which was partially curtailed in the late 1930s, managed to make a significant contribution to the future collapse of the USSR along national borders.
High availability 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 blurred, and by 1917, with money or special talents, representatives of any class could receive a good education. With the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, class restrictions were finally lifted. Primary and then secondary education became universal, and the number of students in higher educational institutions increased many times over.
High motivation of students, respect of society for education. Young people in the USSR really wanted to study very much. In Soviet conditions, when the right to private property was severely 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: far from everyone had enough health for Stakhanov’s manual labor, and for a successful party or military career it was also necessary to improve their level of education (illiterate proletarians were recruited without looking back only in the first decade after the revolution).
Respect for the work of the teacher and teacher. At least until the 1960s and 1970s, while illiteracy was being eliminated in the USSR and the system of universal secondary education was being established, the teaching profession remained one of the most respected and in demand in society. Comparatively literate and capable people became teachers, moreover, they were motivated by the idea of bringing enlightenment 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 the time of Stalin there were very good salaries (already under Khrushchev, however, the salaries of the intelligentsia were reduced to the level of workers and even lower). Songs were written about the school, films were made, many of which were included in the golden fund of national culture.
Relatively high level of initial training of students entering higher educational 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 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 there was recruited better and more capable. It is with this circumstance that the complaints of modern teachers about a sharp drop in the level of preparation of applicants and students are primarily associated.
Very high quality 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, even here we must say special thanks to pre-revolutionary Russian science and higher education, which served as a solid foundation for all these achievements. But it is impossible not to admit that the Soviet Union succeeded - even despite the mass 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.
Satisfaction of the state's colossal demand for new personnel in the face of a sharp increase in industry, the army and science (thanks to large-scale state planning). In the course of mass industrialization in the USSR, several new branches of industry were created and the scale of production in all branches was significantly increased many times and dozens of times. Such impressive growth required the training of many specialists capable of working with the most modern technology. In addition, it was necessary to make up for significant losses of personnel as a result of revolutionary emigration, civil war, repressions and the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet education system successfully coped with the training of many millions of specialists in hundreds of specialties - thanks to this, the most important state tasks related to the country's survival were solved.
Relatively high scholarships. The average scholarship in the late USSR was 40 rubles, while the salary of an engineer was 130-150 rubles. That is, scholarships reached about 30% of salaries, which is much higher than in the case of modern scholarships, which are large enough only for honors students, graduate students and doctoral students.
Developed and free extracurricular 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 circles, sections and electives, Soviet extracurricular education was free.
The world's best sports education system. From the very beginning, the Soviet Union paid great attention to the development of physical culture and sports. If in the Russian Empire sports education was only in its infancy, 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 won first or second place in every Olympics since 1952, when the USSR began to participate in the international Olympic movement.
== Cons (−) ==
The low quality of liberal arts education due to ideological restrictions and clichés. Almost all the humanities and social disciplines in schools and universities of the USSR were to one degree or another loaded with Marxism-Leninism, and during the life of Stalin - 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 in the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks”, according to which the entire world history was presented as a process of maturing the prerequisites for the 1917 revolution and the future building of a communist society. In the teaching of economics and politics, the main place was occupied by Marxist political economy, in the teaching of philosophy - by dialectical materialism. These directions in themselves are worthy of attention, however, they were declared the only true and correct ones, and all the others were declared either their predecessors or false directions. As a result, huge layers of humanitarian knowledge either completely fell out of the Soviet education system, or were presented in a dosed and exclusively critical way, as “bourgeois science”. Party history, political economy and diamat were compulsory subjects in Soviet universities, and in the late Soviet period they were among the least loved by students (as a rule, they were far from the main specialty, out of touch with reality and at the same time relatively difficult, so their study is mainly came down to memorizing formulaic phrases and ideological formulations).
Blackening 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 ambitious than the post-perestroika denigration of Soviet history. Many pre-revolutionary statesmen were declared "servants of tsarism", their names were deleted from history books or mentioned in a strictly negative context. Conversely, outright robbers, like Stenka Razin, were declared "people's heroes", and terrorists, like the murderers 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 in universities at all, all historical departments were closed, traditional patriotism was condemned as "great power" and "chauvinism", and instead "proletarian internationalism" was implanted. Then Stalin abruptly changed course towards the revival of patriotism and returned history to universities, however, the negative consequences of 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 was sharply torn into periods before the revolution and after, 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 an extremely 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 ranked first in Europe in terms of the number of students in universities, so there were a lot of specialists trained in tsarist times 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 load on the remaining teachers, but mainly due to the intensive training of new ones). Subsequently, however, the Soviet scientific and teaching staff were seriously weakened during the repressions and ideological campaigns carried out by the Soviet authorities. 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 moved into the category of lagging behind. Due to the introduction of ideological struggle into science, many outstanding scientists of the humanities and social areas 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 spying on 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 there was a noticeable lag behind world science. The culture of scientific discussion was excessively 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, the opportunities to receive higher education in the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s were almost non-existent. the so-called dispossessed were deprived, including private merchants, entrepreneurs (using wage labor), representatives of the clergy, and former policemen. Children from families of nobles, merchants, clergy often faced obstacles when trying to get a higher education in the pre-war period. In the union republics of the USSR, representatives of the titular nationalities received preferences for admission to universities. In the post-war period, the percentage rate for admission to the most prestigious universities was tacitly introduced in relation to Jews.
Restrictions on familiarization with foreign scientific literature, restrictions on international communication between scientists. If in the 1920s pre-revolutionary practice continued in Soviet science, involving very long trips abroad and internships for scientists and the best students, constant participation in international conferences, free correspondence and unlimited flow 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 became simply dangerous for the lives and careers of scientists, since so many were then arrested on trumped-up charges of espionage. In the late 1940s In the course of the ideological campaign against cosmopolitanism, it came to the point that references to the works of foreign authors began to be regarded as a manifestation of "cow-worshiping the West", and many were forced to accompany such references without fail 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 the public domain and sent to special safekeeping. This “turned into the hands of the most mediocre and unscrupulous scientists”, for whom “mass separation from foreign literature made it easier to use it for covert 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. » of Soviet science was only partially corrected, 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 West in the post-war period the practice of attracting foreigners - native speakers to teaching, as well as the practice of large-scale student exchange, in which students could live in another country for several months and learn the spoken language in the best way, was established, then the Soviet Union lagged far behind in the teaching of foreign languages from -for the closed borders and the almost complete absence of emigration from the West to the USSR. Also, for censorship reasons, the flow of foreign literature, films, and recordings of songs to 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 directions was replaced by 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 their own traditions was proclaimed, while attempts at new experiments began in many cases to be condemned (“Muddle instead of music”), and borrowings from Western cultural techniques were subjected to restrictions and persecution, as in the case of jazz, and then rock music. Indeed, not all experiments and borrowings were successful, but the scale of condemnation and restrictions were so inadequate that it led to the discouragement of innovation in art and the gradual loss of world cultural leadership by the Soviet Union, as well as the emergence of an "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 was seriously affected. In 1956, the Academy of Architecture of the USSR was reorganized and renamed the Academy of Construction and Architecture of the USSR, 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”, a “gray present” was built in the USSR.
Cancellation of 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 program and the textbook was released 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 that gives skills to distinguish between truth and falsehood, to conduct discussions and resist manipulation. Another important difference between the Soviet school curriculum and the pre-revolutionary gymnasium was the abolition of the teaching of 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 built on them; in addition, the study of these languages is a good gymnastics for the mind and helps to develop the skills of discussion. Several generations of prominent 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 have always insisted that the goal of education is not only the transfer of knowledge and skills, but also the upbringing of a moral, cultured person. In many respects, this task was successfully solved in the early USSR - then it was possible to solve the problem of mass child homelessness and juvenile delinquency that developed 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 educate morality, but in some ways even exacerbated the problem. Many educational institutions of pre-revolutionary Russia, including church education and institutions for noble maidens, directly set themselves the main task of educating a moral person and preparing him either for the role of a spouse in the family, or for the role of a “brother” or “sister” in the community of believers. Under the Soviet regime, all such institutions were closed, specialized analogues were not created for them, the education of morality was entrusted to an ordinary mass school, separating it from religion, which was replaced by 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 working collective. For the accelerated development of industry and science, perhaps this was not bad. However, such an approach could hardly solve the problems of the high level of abortions (for the first time in the world legalized in the USSR), the high level of divorces and the general degradation of family values, the sharp transition to having few children, the 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 system of external studies 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 for boys and girls. One of the dubious Soviet innovations in education was the compulsory joint education of boys and girls instead of pre-revolutionary separate education. At that time, this step was justified by the struggle for women's rights, the lack of staff and facilities for the organization of separate schools, as well as the widespread practice of co-education in some of the leading countries of the world, including the United States. However, the latest research in the same US shows that separate education improves student outcomes by 10-20%. Everything is quite simple: in joint schools, boys and girls are distracted by each other, there are noticeably more conflicts and incidents; boys, up to the last grades of school, lag behind girls of the same age in learning, 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, self-esteem of adolescents is more dependent on academic performance, and not on some other things. Interestingly, in 1943, separate education for boys and girls was introduced in the 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 massively close orphanages 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 according to compared to pre-war times. Indeed, during the struggle against homelessness in the 1920s, according to the ideas of Makarenko and other teachers, labor became the main element in the re-education of former homeless children, while the pupils of labor communes were given the opportunity to self-government, 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 homeless children still had some experience of family life. However, later, due to the prohibition of child labor, this system was abandoned in the USSR. By 1990, there were 564 orphanages in the USSR, the level of socialization of orphanage residents was low, and many former orphanage residents fell into the ranks of criminals and outcasts. 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 close to completion.
Degradation of the system of secondary vocational education in the late USSR. Although in the USSR they extolled the worker in every way and promoted working professions, by the 1970s. The system of secondary vocational education in the country began to clearly degrade. “If you study poorly at school, you will go to a vocational school!” (vocational technical school) - something like this parents said to negligent schoolchildren. In vocational schools they took students who did not enter universities, poor students and triple students, forcibly placed juvenile criminals there, and all this against the background of a comparative excess of specialist workers and poor 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 organized, students "vocational schools" began to be associated with hooliganism, drunkenness and a general low level of development. The negative image of vocational education in blue-collar specialties persists in Russia to this day, although qualified turners, metalworkers, millers, and plumbers are now among the highly paid professions whose representatives are in short supply.
Insufficient education of critical thinking among citizens, excessive unification and paternalism. Education, as well as the media and Soviet culture in general, instilled in citizens faith in a powerful and wise party that leads everyone, 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 hush up the truth and severely suppress alternative opinions. As a result, when during the years of perestroika and glasnost they gave freedom to these very alternative opinions, when previously hushed up facts about the history and modern problems of the country began to massively emerge, huge masses of citizens felt deceived, lost confidence in the state and in everything that they were taught in school in many humanities. 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 bring up a sufficient level of caution, critical thinking, tolerance for alternative opinions, and a culture of discussion. Also, the education of the late Soviet model did not help to instill in citizens sufficient independence, the desire to personally solve their problems, and not wait until the state or someone else does 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 exhaustive conclusion due to its inconsistency.
Positive points:
The final eradication of illiteracy and the provision of universal secondary education
- World leadership in the field of higher technical education, in 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, a high level of motivation of teachers and students.
- High level of development of sports education, wide promotion of sports activities.
- The emphasis on technical education made it possible to solve the most important tasks for the Soviet state.Negative points:
Lagging behind the West in the field of liberal arts education due to the negative influence of ideology and the foreign policy situation. The teaching of history, economics and foreign languages was particularly 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 guilt in the degradation of family values and the general decline in 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 ideological content, as well as from obstacles to mastering 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 failed to 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 the humanities and arts.
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 you know, was the best in the world, and was very popular. I think that the Russian language should be recognized as the second (if not the first in number) international language. Now foreign specialists with excellent knowledge of the Russian language work in many countries of the world. To the question from where: - "I studied in the USSR." The Soviet Union raised a generation of specialists that many countries are proud of. Doctors, teachers, engineers, architects are ordinary workers for us, but in the countries of the East, Africa, Brazil, etc., they are very respected specialists with high salaries and positions in society.
They were accustomed to learn and learn from birth - proof of this - a lot of published books that are cheap in price and invaluable in content, a huge number of circles and sections in school years, development by a deficit of ingenuity and resourcefulness (the ability to replace a missing item with cash and make everything that whatever). Coming to study, foreign citizens for 5-6 years completely mastered, if not all the wisdom, then certainly a part of our national consideration.
In the world of science, Herald 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 on far-sightedness. - Underwater radio. - New English radio stations of "directional" action. News about the expedition of Professor I. I. Vavilov. — Use of the thermal energy of the oceans. — The mechanism of laying eggs by the silkworm. Questions of the universe and interplanetary communications. About going to the moon. — About the telescope. - About comets. — On the principle of relativity. — Atoms and molecules. — Light and its distribution. — On the phenomena of thunderstorms. — The study of chemistry. — Questions of biology. - Speech and thought. - Acmeism. — Studying the literature of the past. — Internal combustion engines and turbines.- these are the topics of the 4th issue of the Journal of Knowledge for 1927.
In production, such concepts as rationalization and invention were spread and encouraged. A creative approach to work was welcomed, in which each employee sought to simplify and make the labor process more perfect.
In the film "Rain in a Strange City" love experiences unfold in parallel with the labor process of the protagonist, during which a new idea is born - rationalization.
Rational proposal - so, in conscience, an innovation in the labor process was abbreviated. The accepted rationalization proposals made the workflow more advanced - faster, less costly, and therefore more profitable. Creative teams were created at the factories, which competed with each other in making more rational proposals.
In order to further develop the mass technical creativity of the working people, the All-Union Society of Inventors and Rationalizers (VOIR) was created in 1958. Its tasks included the development of the rationalization and inventive movement - lectures were given, competitions were held and the exchange of experience was widespread - that is, employees of one enterprise were sent to another similar enterprise and adopted labor skills from each other. They moved both within the country and abroad. To get on a business trip abroad for the exchange of experience was the highest chic.
There was a list of regulations governing relations in this direction - The 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 USSR Academy of Sciences and the State Committee for Inventions of February 14, 1977), Regulations, instructions and explanations and one of the most important for employee - Regulations on bonuses for promoting invention and rationalization (approved by a resolution of the USSR State Labor Committee of June 23, 1983).
Rewards were determined based on the amount of annual savings realized from the implementation of the proposal. The holiday "Day of the Inventor and Innovator" was celebrated annually, on the last Saturday of June. On this day, the USSR Academy of Sciences selected the best inventions and rationalization 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 development of the country.
