reforms. On the whole, Soviet production practice is a form of onthe-job training which is incorporated into the higher education curriculum, usually in the last semesters, with only a small part of the curriculum in those semesters devoted to formal study. The status of production practice in higher education is still evolving, because the nature and application of this training in specific programs has confronted Soviet educators with major problems not yet resolved. Information available from Soviet sources indicates in general the position of production practice in various fields of higher education: University Training In the university, the required period of studies in a given field of specialization, following completion of secondary education, has generally been 5 years. Since the 1958 reform, an additional semester has been added in some specialties to allow for expansion of practical training. V. P. Elyutin, U.S.S.R. Minister of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education, gave a general indication of the position of production practice in various curriculums in his major report to the national conference of higher education personnel held in Moscow in July 1961.* He stated that production work linked to theoretical instruction had been introduced in the first year of study in the humanities. It is evident from specific curriculums, however, that the bulk of production work in the humanities and social sciences, as well as in scientific and technical fields, is reserved for the last semesters. Minister Elyutin indicated the variety of institutions in which production training might take place: Proceeding from the requirements of the School Law, the universities have revised their curriculums so as to provide a substantial increase in practical training in laboratories, designing bureaus, research institutes at experimental stations, advanced enterprises, on state and collective farms, and at schools. That considerable programing remains to be done in the production practice aspect of the university curriculum was suggested by Minister Elyutin: We must without delay begin defining and elaborating the methods for conducting the long periods of practice for the senior students in every specialty. For this we must reserve regular positions in production for the universities." This report, "The Higher School at a New Stage," published in Pravda, July 5, 1961, has been translated in Soviet Education, International Arts and Sciences Press, New York, January 1962. p. 35-36. Ibid. Teacher Training Pedagogical practice for teachers is the equivalent of production practice in other fields of Soviet higher education. Besides practice teaching, teachers in several specialties are required to participate in production practice in industrial enterprises, usually in the last semesters of the curriculum. The considerable increase in practical training for teachers in various specialties since the Soviet educational reform is seen in the number of weeks devoted to this activity in the 1959 curriculum, as compared with the immediate prereform curriculum of 1957. The curriculums compared are those of the pedagogical institutes and higher schools devoted primarily to the training of secondary school teachers (grades 5-11). The total period of studies required for each given specialty, following completion of secondary education, has remained the same since the reform as it was in 1957: 4 years for physical education teachers and 5 years for others. Diverse Soviet sources have verified this considerable increase in the time devoted to pedagogical practice. Minister Elyutin reported that "practice teaching for students has undergone a marked change. It is now allocated twice as much time as before." The head of the Faculty of Foreign Languages in the Kazakh Pedagogical Institute in Alma-Ata stated in October 1961 that the faculty's old curriculum called for 22 weeks of pedagogical practice, but that the current curriculum calls for 38 weeks. Medical Training In the U.S.S.R. this training is a 6-year curriculum at a higher medical institute, directly following completion of secondary education. From the limited information available on post-reform curriculums for the medical institutes, the precise amount of increase in practical training for doctors cannot be determined. In practice, it apparently varies from city to city. Minister Elyutin stated in his July 1961 report: Practical training has been considerably intensified at medical prophylactic and sanitary-hygienic institutions. The younger students now care for patients at clinics and hospitals, and senior students serve as medium-level medical personnel there. We must mention the successful work carried out by the hospital clinics of the First Leningrad and the Irkutsk medical institutes, which have taken over the complete polyclinical servicing of several medical districts. This has made it possible for every student to receive patients, visit them at home, and carry on dispensary work, prophylactic vaccination, anti-epidemic measures and enlightenment with respect to sanitation under the guidance of their physician teachers. The improvements made in the practical training of the medical students have facilitated the transfer of the study of parts of special courses to the clinics. An indication of the postreform medical curriculum may be obtained from information on the course of instruction in pediatrics, appearing in the 1960 Report of the Medical Exchange Mission to the U.S.S.R., Public Health Service Publication No. 954: During the first and second years the student takes 160 hours of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 90 hours of Political Economy, and 140 hours of Dialectical and Historical Materialism. The first 2 years also require 220 hours of foreign language, which includes a course in Latin. During the first 2 years the following basic sciences are taught: " 6 Physics.... Biology.. Human anatomy- History and embryology.. Inorganic chemistry... Organic chemistry. Physiology- Hours 136 (40) 190 (104) 392 (274) 182 (116) 140 (86) 295 (164) 247 (115) 207 (137) Microbiology.. During the third year pathology and theoretical materials of clinical subjects are emphasized as follows: Hours • Number in parentheses in all years indicates hours out of total for laboratory work. The last 3 years of the program are devoted to clinical clerkship and to the presentation of didactic material in the clinical subjects and public health. A breakdown of the time devoted to the various subjects is as follows: During the last two summers of schooling the student spends 8 and 4 weeks respectively doing practical medical work in a nonacademic setting. Technical Training Production practice in technical fields is concentrated in the last semesters in the university curriculums such as the program in mechanics-but in the technical institutes, it appears to take place in the early and later semesters, with the bulk of formal study in the middle semesters. This pattern is suggested in Minister Elyutin's statements on technical education in his July 1961 speech, and was made more explicit by the head of the Physico-Mechanical Faculty at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute in October 1961. He stated that the full course for students at the institute was then 5 years and 10 months; that the first year or two was devoted to production training combined with study; and that the third, fourth, and fifth years were spent exclusively in study. At the end of the fifth year the student received 1 month's "acquaintance" practice at an industrial plant, and in the sixth year he practiced full-time in the plant for 42 weeks. A few current curriculums for engineering-technical higher schools have recently become available. The length of studies indicated for each specialty is 5 years and 4 months; the pre-reform curriculums had required 5 years. The new curriculums consistently require an increase in the number of hours devoted to practical training and to seminars and course projects. References and Source Materials Several recent publications provide substantive information on Soviet education at all levels, among which are: Bereday, Veorge Z. F., Brickman, William W., and Read, Gerald H. The Changing Soviet School. Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1960. De Witt, Nicholas. Education and Professional Employment in the U.S.S.R. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961. Medlin, William K., Lindquist, Clarence B., and Schmitt, Marshall L. Soviet Education Programs. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960. A publication devoted specifically to higher education is I. N. Shumilin's Soviet Higher Education, published by the Institute for the Study of the U.S.S.R., Munich, in July 1962. A description of the Soviet system of higher education, by the U.S.S.R. Minister of Higher Education, V. P. Elyutin, is also available in English, published by Bookfield House, Inc., New York, in 1959. The 21 curriculum tables in the appendixes are translations from the following sources: Source A Ministerstvo Vysshego i Srednego Spetsialnogo Obrazovaniia S.S.S.R., (Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education U.S.S.R.), Uchebnye plany po universitetskim, ekonomicheskim i iuridicheskim spetsialnostiam (dnevnoe obuchenie) (Study Plans for University, Economic and Juridical Specialties [Day Programs]), Moscow 1959. Source B Central Methodological Cabinet for Higher Medical Education, U.S.S.R., Ministerstvo Vysshego Obrazovaniia S.S.S.R., Ministerstvo Prosveshcheniia Ministerstvo Vysshego i Srednego Spetsialnogo Obrazovaniia S.S.S.R. (Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education U.S.S.R.), "Uchebnyi Plan, Spetsial'nosti 0201," "Uchebnyi Plan, Spetsial'nosti 0807," and "Uchebnyi Plan, Spetsial'nosti 1202" (Individual, unbound study plans for engineeringtechnical specialties, number 0201, 0807, and 1202). |