Problems and prospects of education in the post-industrial information society

This article briefly discusses the features of the education system in the USSR, which was based on the mass natural-scientific training of personnel capable of creating new knowledge for technological application to the development of strategic industries. The liberal market reforms of 1990–1992 reoriented the education system in Russia to train users to become consumers of technologies and products that already existed in global markets. The education system’s modernization during the new millennium completed the tasks outlined in the 1990s. The reforms of recent years in the field of education have led to the final abandonment of the industrial economy based upon complex technical systems, in favor of a service economy which does not create material wealth. The obvious consequence of this failure is the complete destruction of the education system inherited from the USSR, and the loss of any hope for the restoration of economically and socially significant high-tech industrial production.