About Pre-University Training of Mordovia Youth (1957–1991)

Abstract

Introduction. Preparing young people for higher education is one of the most important areas of modern educational policy in Russia. However, its historical aspect in Russian humanities is considered extremely unevenly. Over the past half century, researchers have focused their main attention on highlighting the activities of the workers’ faculties of the 20–30s of the last century – one of the main sources of replenishment of the ranks of Soviet students. At the same time, questions related to the development system of pre-university training of schoolchildren and other categories of young people at subsequent stages of its development have actually fallen out of the field of view of scientists. This article attempts to fill this gap in the latest regional historiography of the history of higher education based on the coverage of the activities of the preparatory courses (PC) and the preparatory department (PD) of the Mordovia State University in the second half of the 20th century. Materials and Methods. The main source base of the study was made up of materials from the funds of the Central State Archive of the Republic of Mordovia (CSA RM) and the archive of the Department of Administration of Ogarev Mordovia State University. When analyzing the collected factual material, both universal methods of scientific knowledge (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, comparison, systematization, etc.) and special methods of conducting historical research (ideographic, historical-genetic, problem-chronological, historical-systemic) were used. Results. The reasons for the actualization of pre-university training of young people in our country in the second half of the 20th century are revealed, the dynamics of the quantitative and social composition of students, the achievements and problems of the educational process on the PC and software of the Mordovia State University are shown. Conclusion. In 1957–1991, in the Mordovia ASSR, as well as in the USSR as a whole, two main organizational and pedagogical forms of preparing boys and girls for entering universities took shape. The educational activity of the self-sustaining preparatory courses at the Mordovia State University turned out to be the most massive and democratic. The creation of the state budgetary preparatory department at the head university of Mordovia was not only a response to the ideological and political course of the party-Soviet leadership of the country on the formation of the social homogeneity of Soviet society, but also had practical significance for a more conscious and successful choice by young people of their future profession.