Soviet schools to face drastic reforms

Press, 24 April 1984, Page 38

Soviet schools to face drastic reforms

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet Parliament has enacted a sweeping reform of the country’s school system aimed at turning out more qualified workers and giving pupils a stronger commitment to Communism. The Supreme Soviet (Parliament) endorsed the education law, first outlined by the late Yuri Andropov as part of his drive for economic efficiency. The school reform, to take effect in 1986 and the first of its kind since 1958, has been the subject of a free-ranging debate for

years in the tightly controlled State-run press. Under it, children will start school at six rather than seven, giving’ a compulsory 11 years of education, and secondary students will have to work regularly in a factory or workshop attached to their school. The scheme is aimed at providing a basic skill for all students and countering what party leaders consider to be a widespread and nonCommunist aversion to manual labour. More pupils will be channelled into vocational training schools for early high

school graduates and their standards will be raised to produce more technically skilled workers. Text books will be revised and all non-Russian speaking children must become proficient in the language. Teachers’ salaries will be raised 35 per cent and training programmes lengthened to improve the quality of the profession, blamed largely by the party for widespread apathy among the country’s annual 2.2 million school graduates. Soviet teachers, 80 per cent women, earn on average $3268 a year.