Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/1282

 1230 RUSSIA

replaced the former Ministry of Popular Education and enlarged its scope so as to cover the whole field of popular education, having taken over (1) the State theatres, the Academy of Arts, the Imperial Musical Society, and various art and musical schools and institutions ; (2) the educational institutions of a more or less specialised type which had been conducted by various other ministries and State departments ; and (3) municipal and zemstvo schools. The Commis- sariat consists of three 'sections' and a few special 'departments,' the ' sections' being : (1) The Pedagogical Section, which includes departments of 'the Unified Labour School,' 'school reform,' technical schools, pre-school education, out-of-sehool education, and training of teachers ; (2) the Scientific Section, which includes departments of scientific societies, higher educational institutions, and libraries ; and (3) the Art Section, which in- cludes departments of representative arts, preservation of monuments, music, theatres, and kinema.

One of the principal reforms carried out by the Commissariat of Popular Education has been the introduction of 'the Unified Labour School,' which has superseded the various types of elementary and secondary schools of the pre-revolutionary period. The labour school has two grades, one for children from 8 to 12, and the other for children from 13 to 16.

Education is made obligatory and is provided by the State in all its schools and institutions iree of charge. Children are also provided with hot lunches and all the necessary books and appliances.

The budget of the Commissariat for the first six months of 1919 amounted to 65 milliard roubles. By January, 1919, there were opened 10,000 new schools of the first grade, and about 1,000 schools of the second grade. Co-education has been adopted in all schools. The principle of ' labour ' education is applied differently in the schools of each grade ; in the first grade children are taught to make their school self- suppoi ting ; in the second technical work is conducted as a part of the general industrial life of the country.

A feature of the educational work of the Commissariat is the establish- ment of a large number of kindergarten, children's clubs and coloTiies.

In 1919 there were in the territory of the Soviet Republic 63,317 schools and 4,796,284 pupils (in 1911, 47,855 schools and 3,060.418 pupils).

By decree of December 28, 1917, the Government secularised all schools and educational institutions in Russia.

Previous to the revolution universities existed in the following places in the territory now included in the Soviet Republic and administered by the People's Commissariat for Education : Moscow (2), l'etrograd, Kazan, Saratov, Tomsk, Perm, Irkutsk. The Universities of Dorpat and Warsaw, evacuated during the war, were reorganised in 1918 as the Voronezh and Don Universities, and in the same year another was set up at Nizhni- Novgorod. In 1919 universities were established at Jaroslav, Smolensk, Kostroma, Tambov, Astrakhan, Tashkent, Samara, Simbirsk, Orel ; in 1920, at Ekaterinburg, Ekaterinodar, and Veliki Ustivg.

In addition to the institutes of various descriptions — medicine, economic, archaeological, veterinary, philological -existing before the revolution in various larger towns, others have been established for the study of medicine (Moscow, l'etrograd), economics (l'etrograd, Moscow), archaeology (Caucasus and Don), veterinary science (Petrograd, Saratov, Moscow, Novocherkassk), geography (Petrograd), philology (Petrograd), and radiology (Petrograd).

The number of students in universities and places of higher education was 60,000 at the beginning of 1918, immediately after the revolution, and 117,000 in the autumn of 1919, but had fallen, for various reasons, to 35,000 by the beginning of 1920. It is now (April, 1921) about 120,000.