Teaching and teacher education in pre-revolutionary Russia

The chapter explores the main trends of teaching and teacher education in pre-revolutionary Russia. Teacher education in Russia has been an historically changing problem. Its roots lie in the end of the 18th century but its further formation relates to the emergence and development of open comprehensive schools and the spread of general education throughout the country in the 19th century. At the end of the 18th century, the need for teachers increased greatly because of the opening of public schools in 1786 in every city. In 1804, the Russian universities adopted a new Charter, according to which a Pedagogical Institute with a three-year training programme was to be established at each university. In 1859, the teacher training institutes in the universities were closed. Following school reform in the 1860s, teachers’ seminaries and schools became the most common type of teacher training institute. Instead of pedagogical institutes, two-year teacher training courses opened at the universities. In 1872, a number of teachers’ institutes were opened, but they did not have the full status of a higher educational institution and did not give the right to enter the universities and other higher schools. The beginning of 20th century was marked by the development of the concept of university teacher education.