NEW TREND IN SOVIET TEACHING

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5283, 20 December 1946, Page 3

NEW TREND IN SOVIET TEACHING

INCREASING INTEREST IN HUMANITARIAN COURSES. MOSCOW. Largest enrolment of students in Russia's history is flceping Soviet institutions of higher education operating at capacity levels during the current term. Two othep trends are evident: Increasing interest in the humanities, including medicine, law, philosophy, history and pedagogy; and a rising proportion df male students, with this year's figure of 40 per cent. contrast- [ ing sharply with that of last year, | when only 15 peT cent. of the students l wt re men. Those who v/ere enrollei hacl to ' take competitive examinations for the available vacancies in the Soviet Union's 806 higher educational instiI tutions, including -universities, teacheils institutles, engincAring, and industrial training sehools. Applicants numbered about a quarter of a million. Those who had been newly demobilised from the Soviet armed forces were exempted from examination, as were gold and silver niedal students. About 40,000 of these demobilise-d1 veterans were among the applicants, imphessing the exam-ining faculti.es as students of unusual maturity. Most of them who entered the serviee as boys are now grown men who have survived grave ordeals. The rather surprising trend toward the humanitarian studies, which was | first noted in last year's enrolment, has continued. In fact, it has beeome even more noticeable in this second post-war enrolment. Sfcatistical tables of the Ministry of Higher Education show that most Soviet students have chosen to major in medicine, law philosophy, history and pedagogy. Vocational Training. The trend toward the humanities has not, however, drained away any noticeable portion of Soviet youth from technical institutes, which remain as crowded as before. The shift within this field is toward registration in the sehools training speeialists in the textile, food and light industries, and those training powtV and electrieal engineers. This is because these fields' fire the ones expected to offer the best immdiat prospects, in furthering the current (fourth) five-year plan which is due to run until 1950. Power and electrieal engineering are the fields which are most actively sought. About -60,00 prosptective (stu4'eqts failed to pass the examinations this year,. according to -Mr. Ch-utkerashvili. "Five years from now the number will most -prohably be greater,'.' he added. "Within five years the secondary sehools will be graduating about three times more yOung people than there will be vacancies for in higher' sehools."