KEEPING UP THE SUPPLY OF TEACHERS IN RUSSIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70-00058R000100050080-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 21, 1998
• Sequence Number: 80
• Publication Date: February 11, 1956
• Content Type: NSPR

D 111956
S - A WrKA for Release : CIA-RDP70-00058RO00100050080-7
tAM
Keeping Up the Supply
Of. Teachers in Russia
By Norton T. Dodge
"You can vote taxes and bui
a building with the money; it
takes years to train a gpalifid
teacher. And without go (d
teachers in adequate numbs ,
we cannot have good schools."
Our growing teacher shor -
age, particularly in the fields f
science, becomes even mo e
alarming ,in view of Soviet ad,
vanes in the training of sole -
tists and engineers revealed y
Nicholas DeWitt in his excelle t
study "Soviet Professional Ma -
poweer' ?
by L i? A. icAlen Dull}
HE White House Conference
on Education came to grips
with the thorny problem: "How,
can we get enough good teachers
-and keep them?"
Neil McElroy, the conference
chairman, highlighted the plight
confronting our expanding edu-
cational system when he said:
The teacher, the unsung he o
and much maligned bulwark If
ou educational system, occupi s
a referred position in Sovi t
society. A professor's salary a
prestige equal those of high go -
ernmental and industrial off -
cials. Although secondary scho 1
teachers lack the high salari s
and prestige of professors, th y
are respected and fully accept
members of their communit .
Eagerness to enter the teachi g
profession has greatly aided t e.-
expansion. of Soviet education.
Because of the seconds y1
school teachers' decisive role, t e
quality of teacher training pr -
vides an important clew to t e
effectiveness of the system as
:whole. For this reason, my v' t
to the Rostov Pedagogfc Inst-
tute, which trains seconds y
school teachers, proved valuab e
in explaining the effectivene s
of Soviet scientific and technic 1
education at the seconds y
school level.
The director of the institut,
a big, bushy-haired, comfortab e
looking man, might have pass
for the president of Panhand e
State Teachers College here t
hgine,'.The two would not ha e
seen eye to eye on education I
philosophy, however. Accordi g
to the director, there is no que -
tiork -among Soviet educato s
that subject matter takes prec -
dence over methodology. T e'
future teacher of physics, f r
example, spends 60 per cent f
his time on physics, ath -
matics ~andSarniz@Qd- p
CPYRGHT
ences. His coverage of these
subjects will be almost compar-
able to that of a major in
physics in one of our average
colleges. In contrast, American
high school science teachers are
reported to have completed on
the average less than a full
college course in the subject
they are teaching.
The institute had 3,000 reg-
ular students and 2,000 corre-
spondence students. Women
mate up approximately 75 per
cent of the student body. Most
of ti students are 'drawn from
the Rostov area and, upon com
pletion of their four years of
training, will be sent to rural
schools. Over 180 institutes,
providing' similar training, serve
other parts of the country.
The director pointed out that
the divisions or faculties at his
institute correspond to the major
subjects taught in the' ten-
ear or secondary school: ,lan-
uages, literature&, history, geog-
aphy, mathematics, physics,
biology and chemistry. Inaddi-
ion, there are faculties for kin-
dergarten and physical culture.
training. ,and
we were partic-
ularly interested, in the quality,
of science training, we asked to
visit the separate physics build-
ing.
The physics dean explained
that he has a staff of eighteen
and 340 students, 80 per cent of
whom are women. In four.semes-
ers of general physics, the stu-,
ents ,ogver mechanics, heat,
lectricity, optics and atomic
hysics. By the end of the second
rear, the students have studied
uff'ioient mathematics to begin
heoretcal physics. In their last
our semesters they study ther-
odynamics and the kinetic
heory of matter, electromag-
etic fields .and electron theory,
he thdrory of relativity and
tomic theory.
. The dean emphasized that the
raining is general in contrast to ;
hat at the universities, which
s highly specialized in the!
ourth and fifth years and re-
uires independent research in
he prep ra ion diploma
vedtior Kelease :
CPYRGHT
The formal academic training
is supplemented by practice
teaching in. the third and fourth
years totaling ten weeks so that
the student will be able to step
into a teaching job immediately
upon. graduation. All graduates
are assigned to their jobs, usu-
ally in a rural area, for a three-
year period.
Not all ten-year school teach-
rs are trained in pedagogic in-
titutes such as the Rostov insti-
ute. In non-scientific fields and
anguages the universities and
oreign-language institutes are
mportant sources of new teach
rs, but in the sciences, such as
hysics, we were told that close
90 per cent of the teachers
ere trained in the pedagogic
stitutes. Drawing on these
ounces and special institutes for
he training of primary school
eachers, the number of Soviet
rimary. and secondary school
eachers increased almost four-
old in the last twenty-five years.
n a like period,' our teaching
orce increased only about 25
er cent.
With a large, planned expan-
ion of ten-year schools sched-
led for the next five. years, the
oviets face a continuing prob-
em of recruiting thousands of
ew teachers annually. The di-
ector told us that at his insti-
ute there were four to' five ap-
licants for each vacancy. Other
stitutes are not so popular, but
he major obstacle to increas-
g the number of teachers
ained in the Soviet Union ap-
ears- to be a lack of facilities
ather than a lack of appli-
ants interested in a teaching
areer. .
This is something of a Para-
.ox since a secondary school
acher's salary is little better
an that of a factory worker,
ut prestige, greater freedom, a
mmer vacation, and the per-
nal satisfactions derived from
aching tip the scale in favor
teaching. In the Soviet Un-
n, as elsewhere, some-persons
mply like to teach. An under-
ing factor encouraging entry
to the profession is the low :
vel of real wages which forces'
any women to work to make
ids meets.
These various factors, several
which are absent in the
nited States, coupled, with
ocher training which empha-
es subject matter, have en-
led the Soviets to outstrip us
one Important 8Rt
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