The Development of Vocational-Technical Education in the Ukrainian Governorates of the Russian Empire in the Late 18th and Early 20th Centuries. Part 2

Abstract

The work addresses the evolution of vocational-technical education in Ukrainian lands within the Russian Empire. Chronologically, the study covers the period between the late 18th and early 20th centuries. This is the second part of the work. It continues to explore the development of vocational-technical education in the region and examine the progress in this sector during the period. The period between the late 19th and early 20th centuries witnessed rapid industrial development across the Russian Empire as a whole and in Ukrainian governorates in particular. This prompted the need to have in place a proper system of vocational training. To this end, the government adopted Regulation on Industrial Colleges (1888). Following the launch of this regulation, the areas started to become home to various trade colleges and schools, and their number continually grew on the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries. Such educational institutions differed in structure, content of education, and organizational practices. The period under consideration witnessed the development of such areas of vocational-technical education as rail colleges, maritime educational institutions, and technical colleges. On the eve of the revolutionary events, there was a realization among many of the country’s government officials and public figures of the need to reform vocational-technical education. Between 1915 and 1916, a number of draft regulations were proposed regarding technical education, but none were adopted in the end. While, by and large, vocational-technical education was developing in the Ukrainian areas in the light of the development of vocational education in the Russian Empire, it had distinctive characteristics of its own – most notably, including a focus on meeting the need for workers and engineering personnel of the sectors that were dominant in the regions (e.g., maritime transport, foreign commerce, shipbuilding and ship repair, rail transport, agriculture and flour milling, mining and metallurgy, and sugar production).