Introduction.

As prime ministers have come and gone in the Russia of the 1990s, so have the heads of the basic governmental departments that are responsible for the day-to-day running of the nation. The confusion and uncertainty that this creates needs no elaboration, and education has suffered the same fate as other areas of Russian life. As readers of this journal know, the constant tinkering with education and the endless debates on this or that particular policy have not been helpful to those who teach and run the schools on a daily basis; in fact, it has had a demoralizing effect on educational personnel. In an attempt to clarify where he intended to take education, last year the education minister (Aleksandr Tikhonov) presented a position paper to a board meeting of the Ministry, and it is with the text of this paper that we begin this month. While covering a large number of issues, the main thrust of his argument is the need to put secondary education as the primary concern of the nation, a policy that he sees as central to the future health of education in Russia. Stating clearly that free and universally available access to secondary education was to be the norm, he tried to allay the fears of those who are concerned about the growth of fees and the proliferation of private schools. He also stresses the need for schools to return to their earlier mission of "upbringing" and the instillation of moral values, and for greater attention to be paid to those who were on the margins (such as the neglected rural schools) or were outside of education altogether (such as the million or so children who are not receiving schooling at all). It is the task of the Ministry, he asserts, to take responsibility for the social welfare of children, to halt the growth of delinquency, and to work with other state agencies to strengthen and support family life. Given the parlous condition of the government's budget, a program such as this will call for some tough and unpopular choices, one of which is the capping of expenditures on higher education; thus, the decision to reduce the number of tuition-free admissions to universities. While Tikhonov's position is set out in a clear and mercifully jargon-free manner, he has not really specified what the goals of education should be. There remains a need to clarify exactly what the schools should be trying to achieve, for the constant declaration of often contradictory goal-statements has made it difficult for school administrators and teachers to know what to do. In an attempt to bring some order to the situation, Veit et al. have provided in their article an organized survey of some of the more prominent statements on educational development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]