Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 required the system of education, as with all other Soviet institutions, to adjust of it were to survive in the new Russian conditions. It was faced, above all, with the need to indentify a new social and economic role as the education system of a radically different society and economy. This raised fundamental questions that required urgent answer. What was its purpose? Who should it serve? How was it to be organized and financed? In this seminar we shall focus on the responses of that most crucial and yet vulnerable part of the system: higher education, including professional and vocational training. The emergence of a ‘demographic hole; during the 1990s made such questions even more difficult of answer, especially on a longer term basis. However, it should be noted that, under the conditions of an officially declared transition to a market econo0my, the sector proved very sensitive to the new economy’s labour market for employees.