Education for Decline: Soviet Vocational and Technical Schooling from Khrushchev to Gorbachev

Perestroika – economic and political reform – is what the world associated with Mikhail Gorbachev when he led the USSR. There were, however, some political scientists in the West who saw Gorbachevism as a time of conservatism, not of radical change.

Dennis Soltys confirms the latter view in this study of educational policy and institutions in the former Soviet Union. Focusing on vocational and technical schooling, Soltys reveals very strong continuity from Khrushchev to Brezhnev to Gorbachev. In 1991, schools still functioned on the principles of vocational education and applied science inherited from the Khrushchev era, instead of embracing a more forward-looking model based on technical education and basic science. Soltys examines the role of ideas, institutions, and societal actors in the development of education policy, with emphasis on the period from 1981 to 1991. He demonstrates how poor conceptual design and institutional fragmentation damaged Soviet education at all levels.

Education for Decline offers more than a lesson in educational and public policy making. It provides an important baseline for understanding state- and society-building in Soviet successor countries. Commercial entrepreneurs, diplomats, and development agencies should give this book serious consideration.

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