anagement, and practical skills). Technical colleges or tekhnikums were established on the basis of former secondary technical schools and Realschulen and were designed to train specialists in narrow, practical technical fields. In 1928 there were 38 institutes, with 33,400 students, and 126 tekhnikums, with 26,900 students.
In 1929 the All-Union Supreme Council of the National Economy ordered all levels of Ukraine’s education system to be reorganized along Russian lines. Whereas in the 1920s Ukrainian had increasingly become the language of instruction in institutions of professional and vocational education, in the 1930s the trend was reversed, in favor of Russian-language instruction. In 1931, tekhnikums were reduced to the status of secondary schools. By 1933 some professional schools had been transformed into schools that offered secondary special education; others had been liquidated.
In 1934 Kharkiv University, Kyiv University, Odesa University, and Dnipropetrovsk University were re-established. Tekhnikums were charged with the preparation of specialists at the intermediate level, and institutions of higher education (institutes and universities) were to offer advanced qualifications. Institutions of higher technical education with a three- or four-year program were organized in larger industrial enterprises. Under the impact of rapid industrialization the number of institutions of higher learning grew from 42 in 1929 to 173 in 1940. The student population increased from 40,900 to 196,800, and most students were trained in narrow, highly specialized technical fields.
With the approach of the Second World War the supply of labor from the tekhnikums and factory apprenticeship schools was deemed insufficient, and in 1940 the Main Administration of the State Labor Reserve was established with its own schools. All vocational training schools below the level of tekhnikums were placed under the jurisdiction of this highly centralized institution. In 1959 the labor reserve schools were transformed into urban and rural vocational-technical schools, and the whole system of vocational training was transferred to the jurisdiction of a state committee of the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR.
Under Nikita Khrushchev an attempt was made to unify secondary general education with rudimentary vocational education, in a system of specialized secondary and higher education offering practical experience of production processes in enterprises. The attempt failed, and in 1964 professional and vocational training was again reorganized.
In Western Ukraine under Austrian rule, in the 19th century professional and vocational education was poorly developed, and both the authorities and the Ukrainian community focused on the development of the general education school system. Lviv University and Chernivtsi University offered professional education, although few Ukrainians were enrolled there because of discriminatory policies. The Lviv Higher Polytechnical School was founded in 1844, and there were veterinary schools, agricultural schools, and forestry schools in Lviv as well. There were practically no public vocational schools with Ukrainian as the language of instruction, and only one private secondary-level trade school, operated by the Prosvita society in Lviv. There was also a Prosvita agricultural school of lower rank in Myluvannia.
In Western Ukraine under Polish rule, professional and vocational education continued to be weak. The most highly developed professional schools were institutions offering pedagogical training. Professional education organized by the Galician land board was poorly developed; there were only a few schools at the secondary level (eg, commercial art and trade schools in Lviv) and a few more of lower rank (primarily vocational schools). Polish was the language of instruction.
In 1937–8 there were 146 secondary vocational schools (91 in Galicia and 55 in Volhynia), with 22,000 students (17,300 and 4,700 respectively). The number of Ukrainian students attending these schools was negligible because the tra