Hariduskriis nõukogude Eestis
Educational Crisis in Soviet Estonia

Summary/Abstract: Interesting ideas of Philip H. Coombs and the conception of the world crisis in education were known to Soviet researchers and leaders. However, they declared that educational crisis was unthinkable in a socialist country. Yet the crisis under discussion existed and deepened from year to year. At the end of the 1950s a long period of illogical and unproductive reforms (1958, 1964, 1984) started in the Soviet educational system. The main troubles of Soviet education were permanent financial dearth, closedness, reticence, scarcity of information, underestimation of modernisation and innovation, politisation and ideological oppression, self-praise and out-of-date technology. The decisive factor that brought failure in competition with the USA in the sphere of science and education was the lack of capital for investments into the system of higher education and science. All these shortages and shortcomings characterised schools and education in the Estonian SSR as well. That is why the author of this paper attempts to prove that although the broadening of the school net is in principle a democratic trend, it does not guarantee automatically a democratic educational system and equal opportunities for all young people.

• Details
• Contents