d the like). In 1987–8 there were 734 specialized secondary schools, with 800,600 students (of whom 524,300 were in full-time day programs). Schools specializing in commerce and business had 106,800 students in 1987–8; machine-building and -equipment secondary special schools had 102,200 students.
Various institutions of higher education train specialists with advanced qualifications. In 1987–8 there were 146 such establishments in Ukraine, with 852,300 students, of whom 454,500 were in full-time day programs. The largest number of students, 321,300, were in industrial and construction institutes, and 248,800 were enrolled in pedagogical institutes.
Institutions of professional and vocational education were under the jurisdiction of various all-Union ministries in Moscow or of ministries in Kyiv. The number of students admitted to these institutions in any given year was determined according to a plan. Graduates were given employment by the appropriate ministry and normally had to work at the designated position for three years. In some years up to 18 percent of Ukraine’s graduates were given jobs in the USSR outside Ukraine. In the late 1980s there was much discussion of the quality of vocational and professional education, its failure to keep pace with technological and scientific progress, and its emphasis on narrow specialization. The extreme Russification of this sector of education and the lack of opportunity to study in the West were also criticized. In 1987 only 25 percent of the courses in institutions of professional and technical education were taught in Ukrainian, and there were virtually no textbooks written in the Ukrainian language. Starting in 1988, however, the use of Ukrainian slowly expanded.
Institutions of professional and vocational education were also organized by Ukrainian émigrés in Czechoslovakia—notably, the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy, the Ukrainian Higher Pedagogical Institute, and the Ukrainian Studio of Plastic Arts. After the Second World War professional and vocational programs were organized for the large number of Ukrainian refugees in various displaced persons camps in Germany and Austria. In Germany, in 1947–8 there were 26 professional schools and courses, with 1,163 students, and in Austria, 8 secondary professional schools and 140 professional courses of various types.
Riappo, Ian. Systema narodnoï osvity na Ukraïni (Kharkiv 1926)
Siropolko, Stepan. Narodna osvita na Soviets’kii Ukraïni (Warsaw 1934)
———. Istoriia osvity na Ukraïni (Lviv 1937)
De Witt, Nicholas. Education and Professional Employment in the USSR (Washington 1961)
Veselov, Artemii. Professional’no-tekhnicheskoe obrazovanie v SSSR (Moscow 1961)
Pennar, Jann; Bakalo, Ivan; Beredey, George (eds). Modernization and Diversity in Soviet Education with Special Reference to Nationality Groups (New York 1971)
Matthews, Mervyn. Education in the Soviet Union (London 1982)
Ivan Bakalo, Bohdan Krawchenko
[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]