Introduction

WHAT ARE THE EDUCATIONAL CONSEQUENCES OF EXPOSING STUDENTS TO PRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES?
THE IDEA OF HAVING STUDENTS PRODUCE FOR THE MARKET AS PART OF THE TRAINING PROCESS REAPPEARS IN WIDELY DIFFERENT SOCIETIES.

MANY COUNTRIES HAVE TRIED IT AND MANY OTHERS ARE TEMPTED BY THIS ATTRACTIVE IDEA.

The idea of having students produce for the market as part of the training process is reappearing in widely differing societies. Many countries have tried it and many others are tempted by this attractive idea. Yet, while in most countries one can find occasional experiments along these lines, production in Russia - as well as in the countries that were under its influence - has been part and parcel of practically all education and training.

Unfortunately, we know much less about this massive adoption of production practices in Russian schools than about the scattered and less significant experience of Western countries.

This booklet examines the Russian experience and tries to draw some conclusions that could be of interest in other parts of the world. Essentially, it seeks to define the educational consequences of exposing students to productive activities. Is it a good strategy to prepare them for subsequent production? Does it have a positive effect on the values and attitudes of students? Can it generate significant income flows and alleviate budget constraints? Considering the time that it subtracts from more conventional classroom and workshop learning, does it represent a worthy allocation of the student's time?

The initial chapters of this booklet review the Western and then the Russian experience of production in schools and move on to discuss the new economic and social conditions that are changing the rules of the game in Russia and may affect the practice of production in schools. Social malaise and economic difficulties disrupt the schools, making production more difficult, but, at the same time, they increase the incentives to compensate budget losses by the sale of products and services. In the final part of the booklet, some conclusions are drawn from the Russian experience that could be of interest to Western countries.

Chapter I. The Western experience of ‘education cum production’

1. Why try to join production and education?


There are many reasons justifying the inclusion of productive activities in school. For instance, Boehm (1989) mentions:

(i) The achievement of a well-balanced development of cognitive, affective and sensorial dimensions.

(ii) The integration of theory and practice in the learning process.

(iii) The development of an understanding and respect for the social and economic value of work.

(iv) The development of abilities such as perseverance, discipline, work motivation, creativity and decision making.

(v) The generation of additional resources for financing education by the sale of goods and services.

(vi) The generation of income for trainees and their families.

(vii) The achievement of an easier transition from school to working life.

(viii) The overcoming of discriminatory attitudes towards manual work (Boehm, 1989).

As can be seen from this list, there are economic and pedagogical reasons for introducing students to working life. In poorer countries, it stands to reason that economic reasons may predominate. But more often, such reasons are presented as justifications for adding productive elements to education and training. Both justifications make much sense and respond to core issues in education and training, namely, improving learning and alleviating the financial burden of education. Anything that improves either or both is intrinsically desirable. The problem is one of implementation, not of principle.

The major conceptual restriction to the incorporation of production activities in the schools comes from educators who object to their introduction into schools that cater for the poor, while the children of the rich are allowed to devote their undivided attention to academic subjects. It is possible that this ideological position, may have had a major impact on the experiments of 'education cum production' that were being conducted by the Brazilian Ministry of Education in the early 1980s, and helped to bring about their demise.

2. What is meant by production in schools?


There is a considerable latitude in what is meant by 'education cum production'. Indeed, the following activities are often considered as education with production (Cabral de Andrade, 1987, 1990):

　　(i) Production at schools of goods and services for sale.
　　(ii) Internships in enterprises.
　　(iii) School-enterprises, such as hotels, restaurants, etc.
　　(iv) Apprenticeship programmes.

Each of these categories of activities brings the students close to productive activities. From the point of view of the learning benefits that accrue to those who experiment with real work while learning, these activities are all advantageous in one way or another. In addition, we are not dealing with an area in which rigid definitions are either needed or easy to agree upon.

Yet, there are practical reasons why these four modalities of production should not be treated as a whole. Apprenticeship has its own identity, having to do with learning on the job (with or without add-on school-based activities), rather than including production activities as part of school learning. More than 'education cum production', it is 'production cum education'. It is better left as an independent category.

Internships in enterprises, by the same token, do not seem to be in the same category. Due to their intrinsic nature, internships are quite divorced from school life. They merely consist of spending time in enterprises during or after the course of studies. Production takes place at a different site, under a different logic and under the responsibility of organizations that have little to do with the school. The problems are not the same as production inside schools, even though some schools try to have a greater involvement in the content and management of the internships.

Production in schools and school-enterprises are not exactly the same thing, but it is easier to group them together. Production in schools consists of doing in the school what graduates are expected to do after graduation. Thus, if car mechanics are expected to fix cars, one can fix real cars in school, instead of studying theory and practising with workshop vehicles - although this alternative remains possible. Production in schools includes a wide range of activities such as manufacturing or services. School-enterprises refer to activities in which the learning process requires real production. To cut hair one needs real people as a training ground. To cook one needs real food. To serve tables one needs food and clients. Institutions such as restaurants, hotels, petrol stations, retail shops fall into this category. In these cases, it is not possible to have the activities tucked away somewhere at the back of the workshops and operating on and off, according to school convenience. One cannot sell meals prepared at regular school hours now and then. The obvious solution is to create something that looks like its equivalent in the real world and to operate it on a commercial or quasi-commercial basis. Catering courses typically have restaurants opened to the public and the same is true for hair-styling programmes.

In brief, this booklet deals with production that is conducted at schools or in enterprises (or quasi-enterprises) that are under the direct responsibility of the schools. Therefore, internships and apprenticeship are excluded. Notice that Russian schools make a very sharp difference between these activities. When prescribing curriculum loads, official programmes distinguish clearly the practical activities in the workshops, the production at schools, and the internships.

3. What ‘education cum production’ means in the real world?


The present section illustrates real world cases of 'education cum production'. The examples are taken from a paper published by CESO (Biervliet, 1992). Because this publication presents very few examples from industrialized countries, they will be complemented by a few others. However, the examples were chosen so as to illustrate diversity, i.e. the range of programmes being offered around the world, rather than to obtain an idea of their frequency, distribution or geographical spread.

3.1 Production Training Centres (Indonesia)

The ban on export of raw timber and rattan created a market reserve for locally made furniture. Danida is supporting the development of training centres in the rattan and wood furniture trades for students who have at least a primary school certificate. The teaching tries to combine pedagogical, economic and social/attitudinal objectives.

The centres apply the fundamental principle of learning by doing. They are organized as model factories which produce both trained graduates and furniture. Most orders come from Denmark, as a result of contracts established by the Danish consultants.

3.2 The Advanced Training Centres (the Philippines)

A few of the official schools belonging to The Advanced Training Centres sell products and services. One example is the vocational school in the construction trades which offers 120-hour courses on welding, plumbing, light frame fabrication, reinforced concrete and masonry construction. Also, the footwear and leather goods as well as the hotel and tourism centres are also operating in this mode.

The schools accept orders for products and services which are within the capabilities of its instructors and staff and charge the clients 35 per cent of the cost of supplies and materials. Orders are priced at levels which cover the direct costs of production. Clients include public agencies, NGOs and private firms or individuals.

3.3 The Apprenticeship Training Institute (Sri Lanka)

Sri Lanka has a diversified system of vocational and technical education offering a considerable variety of courses. Most of this system is quite conventional and does not engage in production activities. However, the German-supported Apprenticeship Training Institute - Moratuwa - has an ambitious programme linking training to production in five areas (woodwork, metalwork, construction, electrical and electronics). The programme follows the traditional German dual system, and trainees spend close to half of their training in internships in industry.

But in addition to the time spent in internships, the students use the school workshops for production activities. The productive activities are supervised by the instructors, but entirely conducted by the students who receive a modest payment for their efforts. It is interesting to note that there is no large-scale production taking place, as it would be detrimental to the learning process. However, the school administration purchases raw materials and manages production. Hence, apprentices are not involved in the administrative and commercial end of the production.

In another similar school focusing on car repair, a contract has been established with the Central Transport Board which places orders for the repair of bus engines, generators, starter motors and reconditioning of parts. The welding section manufactures hospital beds, wheel chairs, carts, and the millright fitting section repairs air-conditioning and typewriters. Another school in the programme produces violins which are exported to the German market. However, in these schools, students do not receive any payment for their work.

3.4 Shanghai Vocational School Number Two (China)

Chinese vocational schools very often engage in production, just like the Russian schools which are the focus of this monograph. This seems to be derived from the strong emphasis on work experience prevalent in Marxist countries. A typical example of this is the School Number Two in Shanghai, associated with the local Labour Commission. The mechanical shop has designed a reciprocating metal saw which constitutes a permanent production line manned by the students. They do all the turning and milling work as part of their training and subsequently assemble and adjust the individual machines, as part of the machinist training. The saws are sold in the local market at premium prices due to the lack of competition for this kind of equipment.

This line of production is considered as a major source of revenues for the schools.

3.5 Salesian Schools (Chile)

Salesians have perhaps the broadest and longest-lasting experience in school production outside the former socialist countries, as they operate scores of institutions around the world following more or less the same principles. In that sense, the Chilean example can be taken as a sample of the Salesian work along these lines.

The school, 'Gratitud Nacional', was founded in 1892, in Santiago, and has included production activities ever since. It has served as an example for other Salesian schools in Latin America. The school takes students who have completed eight years of schooling and offers them industrial training combining secondary education, workshop training and production activities in the last two grades (240 and 740 hours, respectively). Production activities are in welding, sheetmetal and machine work. Emphasis is on individual customer orders, rather than a factory type of production.

Each student is responsible for his own pedagogical project, including project design, costing and choice of materials.

3.6 CIDE (Chile)

CIDE caters to the informal sector of the economy. Courses last about 300 hours and boys and girls aged 15 to 29 years are enrolled. Occupations often prepare students for the micro-enterprise activities which typically thrive in the informal sector. Training centres are installed - often precariously - in the localities where the students live. Teachers are craftsmen from the communities where the courses are offered. About one fourth of the revenues of the school come from production activities, but not all of the students' production is marketed, since a significant part of the production goes to their families (particularly during the early stages of training, when quality is less than perfect). Graduates are encouraged to group together and create their own workshops. CEDE offers these fledgling firms some financial assistance in the form of short-term loans at subsidized interest rates.

3.7 The Leguruki Vocational Training School (Tanzania)

This school started in 1979 with 40 students in carpentry and masonry. It was established by the Wameru people with the help of a priest. The curriculum was especially tailored to the needs of rural environment. The original idea was to use local materials for housing construction, but it was necessary to conduct much experimentation to find materials with the necessary strength and local acceptability.

Houses were then built of ram-soil and were covered with ferro-cement roofing tiles. Handcarts and furniture are made from local wood.

The school is financed through fees collected from students and production activities complement the budgets. But, in addition, the school also keeps its own cattle and produces maize, beans and vegetables. However, the main production activities are the construction of classrooms, schools and private houses. The carpentry shop puts up the roofs of buildings and makes school furniture, doors and windows. In addition, the motor vehicle shop services local cars and trucks.

3.8 Porto Novo Polytechnic (Benin)

Vocational schools in Benin were organized during a period in which Marxism-Leninism was the official ideology. Therefore, they incorporate the usual provision to have all schools linked to production. Under a Swiss cooperation project, it was planned that 20 per cent of the school costs could be covered by the revenues of school production.

In contrast to other projects reviewed previously, there is a separation between production and training activities. The school production is an extra-curricular activity. Production covers the areas of carpentry and furniture making, metal work, welding and bicycle repair. But, in addition, it also entails agriculture and cattle breeding.

3.9 Liceu de Artes e Oficios (Brazil)

The Liceu is an old institution, dating from the early days of the century. It established a solid reputation as a source for sophisticated furniture-makers and also by manufacturing the furniture of official buildings and government palaces. At present, it is a private institution funded by the profits of a factory which manufactures equipment to measure water consumption in houses. What sets the Liceu apart from other schools engaging in production is the complete separation between the training programmes and the productive activities. The production is no more than a source of income to finance the school.

This can hardly be considered an 'education cum production' training but rather an 'education cum production' institution.

3.10 The Aguas de Lindoia Hotel (Brazil)

This hotel, operated by SENAC (The National Service for Commercial Training), is a typical case of a catering school which operates an hotel and a restaurant where students are trained in all trades by truly operating a real life hotel. This is perhaps one of the most common forms of 'education cum production'.

SENAC took over an upmarket summer resort hotel and transformed it into a complete catering school. Students occupy all positions, such as front desk, kitchen, restaurant and room service. Given the variety of the services offered by a hotel, a hotel permits a broad variety of courses, ranging from short courses to waiters to a Master's degree in hotels and catering.

3.11 IPNEPT (Ivory Coast) (de Moura Castro, 1987)

This public technical school, operating with the support of French cooperation, offers regular courses in metal fabrication, construction trades and electricity. Its main task is to prepare instructors for other Ivorian vocational schools. It also engages the students in production activities.

But what sets it apart from other similar institutions is the effort to develop 'appropriate technology' solutions to African problems. With the strong leadership of French engineers it engages in very creative R&D projects. It has developed products such as an adobe brick press, jigs to tap new water connections from the mains and more efficient cooking stoves.

3.12 Training School on New Information Technologies (Uzbekistan)

This is an interesting case of a traditional Russian-inspired vocational school which evolved considerably in many innovative directions. In its earlier stages it was a public vocational school to prepare office workers. An aggressive management decided to move on to computers, new office technologies, software development and hardware production. But the management of the school soon discovered that public budget shortages and rigid rules offered insurmountable difficulties to the materialization of the plan. The solution then was to privatize the school. In the new stage, it charged for tuition. But in addition, a joint venture with a foreign firm was undertaken, in order to develop production activities. A very profitable line was the assembly of computers from imported components. Thousands were produced and sold to the local markets. In addition, the school develops software and sells it in the local market.

Once a computer system is sold, graduates of the school have an opportunity to find a job operating it or engaging in the maintenance of hardware.

3.13 Dial CEFET (Brazil) (de Moura Castro, 1995)

The Federal Technical School of Parana has created a very interesting programme to stimulate teachers and students to engage in simple R&D projects. Any local firm can dial a service desk at the school to discuss problems in their production lines. A teacher and a student are then appointed to the case and try to develop a project to solve the problem. Typical projects range from the redesign of pizza ovens which bum unevenly, machines to make corn-husk cigarettes and optimization of computer programmes for process control. The school charges the firm about one fourth of regular commercial rates and uses the revenues to buy equipment.

3.14 The Sainte Croix Technical School (Switzerland)

This school offers courses on precision mechanics, electronics and automation. It takes the usual idea of using students to develop productive activities for the outside market but goes some steps farther. Perhaps what sets it apart from other programmes is the emphasis on R&D projects. The school uses its students and teachers to develop new products. In fact, students never engage in regular repetitive production, only prototypes. From the initial development of a caliper for measuring trees, the school moved to the development of CNC lathes and flexible production islands. It gets its orders from a private corporation (Swissperfo) owned by the faculty of the school. This corporation obtain R&D loans from the Swiss government and sells its products worldwide. Once products are developed, former students are encouraged to create their own enterprises and take up the commercial production.

4. The practical difficulties of production in schools


Considering its pedagogical and economic attractions, if production in schools were an easy and smooth process, it would be far more widespread in the Western world than it is.

It is easy to notice that Western countries have more than their share of difficulties when implementing production activities in schools. The evaluations of different experiments mentioned in the CESO paper (Biervliet, 1992) illustrate relatively similar shortcomings. In fact, while not all schools have the same problems, there are some recurring themes. Another study by Cabral de Andrade (1987) examined several dozen schools and school systems in 14 countries and found more or less the same difficulties.

The analysis presented below will be based primarily on the individual school monographs of the CESO study.

A quick survey of the literature permits us to group the problems encountered by schools in the following five categories:

(i) Institutional rigidities
Schools tend to be very centralized institutions, operating under rigid rules. The decisions which are allowed to be taken at school level tend to be quite limited. This is particularly true when money is involved. Buying and selling tend to be severely constrained in schools and this is a remarkably common feature everywhere in the world, and yet buying and selling are the essence of the productive process. The regulatory framework that is usual in schools makes it very difficult for them to operate like enterprises. They often need to have purchases of supplies and raw materials done by the central authorities or subjected to the Byzantine rules of the public service. Sales are often even more difficult as schools are not allowed to receive money. In many cases, revenues go to the central treasury and formidable difficulties are encountered in attempting to return them to schools. In some cases, there is not even the promise of re-capturing from the central treasury part of the revenues generated by their own efforts.

To a greater or lesser extent, institutional rigidities seem to be present in most experiments of 'education cum production'. In the CESO survey, out of 13 programmes for which evaluation data were available, four programmes reported difficulties of this kind.

(ii) Lack of preparation of staff

Teachers are trained to teach and, in many situations, this is as much as can be asked of them. We should not expect them to be at all prepared for conducting factory-like operations. They were not recruited or prepared for operating a factory or a shop. Shortcomings of staff and their training were mentioned in several experiments described in the literature. Teachers may know how to be teachers, but not necessarily how to be shopkeepers. The same is true of administrators who were not prepared to run factories. Six programmes in the CESO evaluation reported problems of teacher or management preparation.

(iii) Lack of motivation

Teachers, by choosing their occupation, displayed a preference for teaching. When confronted with the challenge of operating something that looked more like a factory or a shop, most felt uncomfortable and lacked the motivation. The entire structure of the incentives of the institution they belong to is that of a school. Shopkeepers have to manage the shop and balance costs and revenues. They have to sell more and produce cheaper, otherwise they go broke. The structure of incentives is clear. A balance sheet in the red means trouble, and in the black, prosperity.

Schools have their own system of incentives which might be inadequate even for their own purposes. Hence, the chances of inheriting a system of incentives that is dysfunctional for operating a factory inside its walls are quite high. In most cases, one cannot fire teachers who cannot bring the budgets back into the black or reward them with more money when they generate a surplus. That being the case, it is not surprising that teachers often lack the incentives to operate production activities as expected.

Often, students also lack incentives. While this is far from universal, in some cases, students do not like the hardships of working at production activities. They may see little to be gained. In other cases, the school is unable to project a positive image of its productive activities for the same reasons that vocational schools often acquire a low status image. Two programmes in the CESO survey reported difficulties with the motivation of their staff and students.

(iv) Lack of financial resources

Schools need very few inputs to operate. Basically, if there is a teacher, classes will go on, even if chalk and books are absent. That learning is impaired by these shortages is not to be denied. But the fact of the matter is that schools are often lacking basic resources of all kinds, particularly those schools that cater for the poor. Since schools that want to engage in production activities tend to serve less affluent groups of society, it should not be a surprise if they tend to be subjected to the same shortages as the others. The difference is that teachers can improvise in conventional teaching or even produce very few results with impunity, while the lack of supplies grinds production to a halt. Even if it is only glue that is missing, the production of chairs will stop.

The typical case of well-run operations indicated that revenues covered no more than 20 to 25 per cent of costs (Chile and Benin). Very rarely was the sale of production sufficient to offset the costs. In the cases where this happened, this was because of exceptional entrepreneurship on the part of management (Uzbekistan) or because the training component was minimal or non-existent.

It is not surprising that there were several reports of problems in production resulting from lack of resources. Indeed, six of the CESO cases had clear difficulties resulting from scarcity of resources. Most of those that did not have those shortages were financially backed by bilateral aid (German, Danish, Sweden, Switzerland) or NGO support (Salesian Brothers).

(v) The product is not competitive and it is difficult to understand markets

Schools have a long tradition of teaching, but little to show in the way of skills for operating a factory or a shop. After all, this is not their traditional line of business. Within the framework of a school, it is not easy to create the environment that produces competitive goods. It requires skills and a dedication that may be lacking in the school atmosphere. After all, how many businesses fail to survive even when this is all they do. Tastes change and products have to follow the trend. Consumers are demanding and display little loyalty to those who offer something more expensive or worse.

As a result, one of the most common problems with production in school is the difficulty of competing with regular enterprises. In the CESO survey, four countries had problems in finding customers for their products or remaining competitive. Of those that could easily sell their production, most were in socialist countries (Uzbekistan, Russia and China).

5. Token production or bad education? - An unstable equilibrium


A large majority of the experiments with production in school have, to a greater or lesser degree, some of the difficulties mentioned above. There is, however, one problem which is far more pervasive and stubborn than those just mentioned.

Some programmes manage to offer decent education or training programmes but limp along at the production end. Some almost drop their production activities and concentrate on teaching. The rarely met challenge is to do both well. The number of schools that at one moment or another planned to produce for the market is probably much greater than imagined, because these intentions are often abandoned and forgotten. Published research reports have dealt mostly with those who were successful or still trying, not with those who gave up.

There are programmes which are particularly successful at the production end but this happens at the cost of allowing the education function to deteriorate. Staff put all their efforts into the business end of the school and manage to make it successful. Yet, in order to do that, the commitment to education or training is jeopardized. Participants work long hours to keep production targets. The content of the work is geared to what sells in the market rather than to what gives a better chance of learning. This means repetitive work, often without any significant learning component.

In other words, there seems to be an unstable equilibrium in the harmonic combination of training and production. In real life experiments, either production collapses or the training is seriously damaged.

The Russian case presented below shows that this is also a very typical situation there. In Western countries, putting production ahead of learning is common in programmes catering for the very poor. Generating enough resources to keep the programme going and creating some remunerative occupation for the participants is of paramount concern, which may stand in the way of learning considerations.

The problem is no different from all the others which have been alluded to before. What it takes to make a school successful is not the same as what is required for the successful running of a business. It is easier to have one or the other, but not both. This is probably the reason why such a good idea remains so hard to implement on a large scale in Western countries.

6. There are successful experiments in ‘education cum production’


The above negative comments should not be taken as evidence of the futility of combining education and work. It is difficult to give any secure quantitative measurement of the proportion of successes to failures.

Although many fail, there are also a good number of programmes which are quite successful.

When the reasons surrounding their successes are examined, the following seem to stand out:

(i) Successful programmes have strong leadership
In order to overcome the difficulties and the challenges of operating a school and a factory, two activities that are not on the same wavelength, it takes more than routine management.

The case of the Ste. Croix Technical School shows a good example of a strong-minded headmaster. He rescued the school from an economic disaster that led that small town in the Swiss Jura to lose two thirds of its industry. And without industry who would think of enrolling in a technical school? Why should the community vote public budgets to keep open an empty school? The school then started to use its human resources and workshops to develop sophisticated mechanical and electronic products for the market. Slowly, the school climbed back to its original level and, more than that, specialized in the development of flexible manufacturing islands. Since all students participated in the development of the new products, the learning component was enhanced, rather than diminished.

(ii) Successful schools have staff with the correct profiles and training.

It is hard to transform teachers into factory managers. Yet, it is possible to recruit the right kind of people and prepare them for the variety of profiles that are needed in this hybrid type of programme. This is indeed what happened in programmes such as those in the Philippines, Indonesia, Chile and Switzerland.

(iii) Successful programmes have sufficient resources

Money does not buy success in production-schools any more than it does in other lines of activities. It is not a sufficient condition for success. Yet, it is certainly a necessary condition, as mentioned in the previous sections. As mentioned, the sale of production is not sufficient to cover costs. Programmes like those in Sri Lanka have had sufficient resources provided by the German co-operation and this was one of the keys to its success. The same is the case with the Danish support to Indonesian programmes and Swiss support in Benin. In fact, the CESO studies strongly suggested that only in relatively better off countries, such as Chile and Uzbekistan, could reasonable results be obtained without external funds.

(iv) Successful programmes have autonomy

Failure to grant production schools the independence they need certainly jeopardizes these initiatives. By contrast, those programmes that showed good results had the freedom to make all the requisite decisions on the spot and respond to the challenges of the outside environment.

(v) Successful programmes understand their markets

Like successful enterprises, good production programmes in schools know their markets. They have the same respectful and alert attitude as good enterprises towards customers and their needs. They understand prices, costs and the overall idea of running a good business.

(vi) Successful programmes operate in areas where training requires production

Areas such as restaurants, hotels and hairdressing require more controlled practice than classroom activities. For that reason, the process of instruction and the profile of teachers is much closer to standard practice in industry. A mathematics or a machine-shop instructor needs skills which are related, but not the same as those of the workers in a machine shop. But a good cooking instructor cannot be but a good chef.

Therefore, serious schools in these areas are full of real practitioners who can easily handle the business end of the schools. These are the typical areas where Western schools engage in production.

(vii) Summing up: it is difficult, don't try it unless conditions are favourable!

To sum up, the introduction of production in schools remains a most attractive idea. It brings the school closer to the world of work, it gives a more realistic flavour to job training and it may forge the right attitudes towards work. In addition, under the usual financial conditions that prevail in poor countries, the extra revenues of the sale of products and services are more than welcome. Yet, implementation is difficult. It is not impossible, but the literature seems to suggest far more failures than successes. It may be asking too much from schools that have enough trouble already in teaching the basics. In addition to the logistical problems, schools have difficulties in having the requisite dual approach necessary both to teach properly and to produce something customers will buy. All these arguments should not be taken as a discouragement but as warnings. It is not realistic to expect good results if most of the conditions mentioned above cannot be met. It does not help the meritorious cause of producing in schools to try to do so under conditions where it is not possible to avoid these obvious and well-known hurdles.

Given the attraction of 'education cum production' and the chronic difficulties of implementation, it is very instructive to examine the experience of the Russian Federation, a country where the combination of production and education was the rule rather than the exception.

Chapter II. The Russian experience of ‘education cum production’

1. The Marxist-Leninist emphasis on work and the permanent state of penury in Russia


It is often forgotten that the origins of work in school date from the Czarist period. Attempts to make education productive and to educate at production sites predated the 1917 revolution. Work training was offered in Realschulen and vocational schools, 'remeslennye uchilisha', of Czarist Russia. We can trace it further back to Peter the Great, who was the first proponent of utilitarian education in Russia and saw productive work as a very important tool for a child's and adolescent's moral upbringing and sound education.

The link between work and education has an ideological origin which also precedes the communist regime. The work of Marx and subsequently the writings of Lenin put work as one of the central values of society. The concrete production of goods is considered to be the essence of what is good and wholesome in society. Not surprisingly, the first legislation bringing work and schools together was signed by Lenin in 1919.

The idea that students should do productive work gains weight and becomes a central feature of Russian education after the Communist Revolution. The idea of work in schools follows on naturally from Lenin's work.

The reason for this was not purely ideological. The economic crisis that followed the Russian Revolution prompted the government to train workers while they worked. The economic situation since the 1917 Revolution has been a succession of disasters, with famines, social unrest, and economic disorganization, culminating with the ravages of World War II. Therefore, the work that students could do while at school made much practical sense. In a country plagued by a succession of wars, revolutions and famines, producing more to avoid a greater tragedy has been a constant in the minds of Russians.

As a result, it is natural that students should help in the productive effort, just like everybody did in Western countries during the two world wars.

Therefore, ideology as well as practicality led to a long-standing tradition of putting students to work as from their early school days. But, the concrete means of putting practical activities into schools have evolved with time. Right after the Communist Revolution there was an attempt to integrate vocational and general education, but the effort failed and was abandoned. As from 1920 on, vocational and academic education took separate paths. Vocational schools were put in charge of preparing very large numbers of skilled workers. Academic schools had as their main goal the elimination of illiteracy. This completely separate tracking of vocational and academic lasted until 1940.

From 1940 on, a serious attempt was again made to bring vocational schools closer to the academic curricula, by adding the standard academic disciplines to their curricula. At the same time, enterprises were told to offer the practical part of the training. They were expected to provide the instructors and the appropriate facilities. This forced engagement of firms and the mandate to offer a parallel academic curriculum created endless problems. It imposed a financial and administrative burden on the firms and did not correspond to commensurate results, as students often did not want to stay in the jobs. Under the prevailing authoritarian system, firms were forced to offer training. As a result, they ended up training for occupations for which there was no demand.

From the 1970s on, the importance of productive labour in schools decreased, particularly in the case of academic secondary schools. Indeed, in these schools this was always a somewhat artificial imposition, not too well received by students, parents and teachers. The Russian education system was essentially divided into three tracks. The secondary academic, enrolling close to half of the students, has always had a more peripheral and ambiguous relationship with productive work. The technical schools offer a full academic programme, which straddles the secondary and two years of post-secondary level. In addition they offer a strong occupational preparation. The vocational schools (PTU) are unequivocally geared to preparing skilled workers, but offer academic disciplines at a less ambitious level - and often not up to the requirements of higher education entrance. Both the technical and the PTU have comparable enrolments. As will be described later on, the stronger the vocational orientation of the school, the more solid will be their commitment to productive work.

Western readers should notice the massive scale of the PTUs. In 1995, there were about 4,300 vocational schools falling under this category, enrolling around 1.7 million students. There is no other country in the world which displays such a gigantic system of schools geared to training skilled workers.

Now, the role of labour, production and practical training is undergoing a new transformation. Labour markets have become more competitive and perturbed, leading youth to reconsider the usefulness of training in practical occupations. However, research shows that, against all expectations, graduates from vocational schools have fewer difficulties in finding jobs than just about any other young person in Russia (de Moura Castro, 1994).

At the same time, secondary level schooling is no longer compulsory. This has allowed vocational schools to impose more stringent entry requirements - in contrast to a previous situation in which they had to take all students applying. While this has had a beneficial impact on the quality of the teaching and the morale inside these schools, it has created a social group which did not exist before in Russia: high-school dropouts. As a result, 15 year-old drop-outs are entering the labour market. Notice, however, that the drop in enrolment is not dramatic, having been estimated in 1993 as around 5 to 10 per cent. Vocational schools remain numerous, their total count exceeds four thousand. In other words, the fact that schools could select students has had a greater psychological impact than the effect of reducing enrolment. It is the fact that trouble-makers and less motivated students could be eliminated that made the difference. It seems that in the majority of the cases the threat of being expelled was an effective deterrent.

The Ministry of Education has tried to tackle this problem by developing a new category of vocational schools. Academic schools are being transformed into a new generation of vocational schools which still provide an academic curricula but add to it vocational training of a rather specific nature (trades in agriculture and industry). In other words, the pendulum has swung backwards towards a greater integration of vocational and academic streams. The difference is that before the reasons were mostly ideological and now the process is driven by a pragmatic attempt to prepare students for the labour market.

2. The pedagogy of work in schools


In academic schools, combining work and education was considered a necessity. It also reflected the communist idea of an 'harmonious development of the child'. It was an element of the prescribed 'communist upbringing'. In the early years of the Soviet Republic, any work was considered to have an educational value. One of the favorite quotations to support this postulate was borrowed from Friedrich Engels, "work made the man out of the ape".

For more than 50 years, Anton Makarenko was considered to be the leader in the incorporation of productive work into education (Weitz, 1992). The Soviet Pedagogical Academy declared his experiments in the 1930s, establishing a work colony for homeless children as the model for using productive work for educational purposes. In more recent years, Makarenko and his experiments have been denounced.

Following one of the main ideological principles of Soviet education, since blue-collar workers constituted the leading class in Soviet society, during their school years children were meant to acquire working-class values. And what could be a better way of doing that than through work? What could be a better place to see these values put into practice than in a factory? Therefore, the 'lessons of labour' (uroki truda) were part of the school curriculum and during summer vacations high school students were required to work for one month in factories (internships in offices were possible but rare, and usually restricted to students of elite language or science schools). That one month internship was meant to reinforce the nine years of school efforts to inculcate in students working-class values.

In line with the ideological importance of combining work and education, this was one of the favourite themes of the Soviet official: 'Education Science'. Thousands of dissertations were defended on this topic. Educators got awards, ranks and tides for promoting this key principle of the Soviet Education doctrine.

3. Work during primary education


Promoting production within schools has been the hallmark of Russian education and training, and it starts at basic education. From the first days of school, Russian children are exposed to some form of work.

Lessons of 'labour' in the primary school (first to fourth grades) usually took place in the classroom where the students had other lessons, rather than in the school workshops. Children of that age were not allowed to work in the workshops for safety reasons. And they actually did not need any special equipment besides scissors, glue, needle and thread, since in these classes they made simple toys. New Year decorations, postcards, etc. They usually had two to three classes per week, boys and girls together.

One feature that is not unique but is very central in Russian education is the sharing amongst students of all the cleaning of school buildings. As from the first grade, students are expected to clean their classrooms and after some years they take shifts in cleaning the corridors and other common areas of school. In fact, Russian schools practically do not have any personnel for cleaning and performing simple maintenance.

In the middle school and first year of high school (5-8 grades), students are expected to engage in production. Most schools have simple workshops or production facilities. They used to receive from factories some simple parts that needed machining, finishing or assembly. Typically, a factory would subcontract with the school the assembly of some simple products, such as household electrical switches. Students were expected to work a few hours a week in these workshops. While this pattern repeated itself throughout the Soviet Union, in large cities, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, there were fewer programmes with this factory orientation and more schools with special activities, such as foreign languages.

At this level, girls and boys already had separate classes. Boys worked in the school workshop assembling parts for factories, repairing irons, making kitchen stools, or making something useful for school. Girls had their classes in a separate classroom, equipped with sewing machines and a gas stove. Girls learned how to make clothes for themselves and prepare simple dishes.

Both boys and girls had two lessons (in sequence) per week. Such lessons were seen as an instrument to prepare them for traditional roles in families: women cook, mend, and sew for the family, while men make or repair household objects. We can argue about whether it was good or bad to promote these traditions, but both female and male students saw the practical value of the skills they were acquiring.

In recent years, some schools have introduced the now popular disciplines related to applied economics, management, marketing and accounting. Principals report that this not only makes sense, but the students themselves had demanded such new disciplines which were expected to prepare them for a market economy.

One should not imagine that the workshops are anything but rudimentary or that these assembly lines are particularly productive. There has been much ideology and official rhetoric in this process. But quite clearly, this was serious business, occupying several hours per week of the entire Russian generation of primary school children. In addition, cleaning the school is a concrete and useful activity. It definitely lowers the costs of janitorial staff and we should not, a priori, discount the levelling effects of having all students do their tour of duty at the broom.

There is much disagreement, however, concerning the usefulness of this arrangement. Teachers and citizens do not have convergent opinions on this matter. Do such repetitive tasks teach anything relevant? Do they change students' attitudes toward manual labour? Do students acquire a greater sense of discipline as a result of doing real work?

4. Work during academic secondary education


As students get older, they are expected to acquire a greater number of manual skills and to engage in more productive and complex activities. Many schools have workshops that teach the basics of an occupation. In addition, students are expected to really produce something of economic value. After taking a certain number of credit hours of vocational courses, they may pass an examination and acquire a certificate that has a clear market value. For those who go to the labour market without further education, this training would allow them to start at a level that was higher than that which they could aspire to without this certificate.

The high level of stratification by diploma in Russian society has to be taken into account in understanding the logic of this training. All workers were rated according to the level of education and training completed. And a secondary diploma did not mean much in the labour market - it led to a rather low entry level. By contrast, a vocational certificate after a relatively short course taken at high school raised the job level to which they had access upon graduation.

Regardless of whatever market distortions might lie behind these rules, their practical consequences were clear. A certificate acquired as a side activity during secondary academic education put its holder in a higher occupational category compared to someone with only a secondary diploma.

Therefore, taking practical courses and engaging in the productive activities that go with them made much sense as an insurance against failure in being admitted to higher education. And since considerably less than half of the high school graduating cohort ever entered higher education, this was an insurance that had plenty of justification.

In addition to the work incorporated in the school curriculum, students were often required to work after school or during part of the summer vacations. Besides school cleaning, community work was also quite common, such as helping to clean a day-care centre, planting trees in a community park or helping with the harvest. The value of that experience largely depended upon teachers and their ability to arrange meaningful work, organize the activities well and motivate students. However, since teachers were required to report on how many students were doing community work, most of them would try to find them any kind of work and not worry too much about its educational content. The results were a mixed bag. In some instances, students learnt a great deal about team work, community support and personal pride and responsibility. Yet, they often resented the intrusion upon their personal time.

In actual practice, the capability of academic high schools to offer meaningful practical training programmes or productive activities left much to be desired. In contrast to vocational and technical schools which indeed took production seriously, academic schools went half-heartedly into these practical activities. Ideology mandated them, but the everyday concerns of a school dedicated to more academic pursuits militated against serious production. In more recent times, being more congruent with the new era, vocational training in secondary schools is optional. But much is changing in Russia.

The number of enterprises with workshops to train students has been drastically reduced, having decreased by 80 per cent in five years. The government is fighting this trend, resulting from firms which are now far more independent than before, and see no economic reasons to train high school students. One of the new policies is a decision not to privatize the firms which produce school equipment and also to give them tax exemption. The idea is that these firms should provide training places for students. In other words, since private firms do not 'behave', some will remain public in order to perform such social duties.

Another compensatory policy is to encourage schools to have their own workshops. This has led to an increase of 40 per cent in the number of production facilities in secondary academic schools. While pedagogical justifications may be invoked, the main incentive remains the possibility of using 40 per cent of the revenues from the sale of products to increase the salaries of faculty staff.

While ideological reasons for school production weakened and then disappeared, official policies have been replaced by practical motives. School budgets have plummeted and using the school facilities to generate revenues has become a motivating force behind the new generation of changes.

Schools are creating enterprises and co-operatives to exploit however they can their potential to make money. In 1994, there were already 400 cooperatives. But the development of more competent suppliers in the market has since driven many out of business. In the rural areas, however, the cooperatives are still expanding.

Overall, the picture is unclear, with many changes taking place and many amateurish initiatives. The spontaneous growth in money-making activities, the complete lack of a new pedagogical model for training and education, combined with the persistence of the traditional modes of training cannot hold much promise.

There is, however, an interesting movement under way to update education models, encouraging independence, critical thinking and responsibility. In some schools, simulation games are played in which students learn about the functioning of a market economy. A few experiments are taking place in conjunction with American 'Junior Achievement' firms. The Volga-Vyatsk oblast schools educate students in cultural traditions and folk arts and operate a small school business where students have a chance to take turns in different managing positions.

At this moment, with so many changes taking place which are affecting the slant of the academic system, it is very hard to say what is really happening to production in secondary academic schools. To make matters worse, the reduced power of the central government has led to a deterioration of statistics and information in general.

5. Training and Production Centres (UPK)


The concrete possibilities of some schools to offer meaningful training can be quite limited. Workshops and their instructors are expensive and cannot be duplicated in every school. To remedy this situation, there are centres which offer practical training to students coming from various schools in the neighbourhood. Since the beginning of the 1970s, students of the last two years of secondary school spent one whole day each school week in one such Training and Production Centre ('UPK'). Since they recruit secondary students from many schools, they ensure enough students to justify the wide variety of trades offered. Large cities have many of these inter-school training centres.

The idea behind these centres was to help students to make up their minds about their future occupation, by allowing them to be trained in one or more occupation. While this was a sound idea, ideology interfered with its execution. The list of occupations offered was generally limited to blue-collar professions and the 'UPK day' was obligatory for everyone, irrespective of students' intentions and decisions regarding their future careers. In some places, UPKs were effective. The factories which sponsored them provided good trainers and arranged meaningful internships. This allowed students to work with real clients and to produce something real. These UPKs offered a choice of a variety of occupations. Some of the trades offered were in the conventional areas, as could be expected. Woodwork, mechanics, electricity, welding, sewing, cooking and selling are the usual subjects offered.

However, since UPKs were created in Moscow and the strict guidelines for their operation were developed by the Soviet Pedagogical Academy, local conditions were not taken into consideration. UPKs cloning those of Moscow were mandated everywhere, irrespective of local needs and resources.

While they are dedicated to practical endeavours, there is some elasticity in the term 'productive work'. Students now learn about computers and some receive rudiments of the teaching profession. These courses are a mere preparation for subsequent work and they are far from being productive in the conventional sense of the word. Some students may write BASIC programmes, others learn how to teach young students. But they neither provide the market with data-processing services nor do they teach real students. The original idea of productive work coming from the official ideology evolved into a mere preparation for productive work in areas where a much longer learning period is required. In other words, students machine real parts in the lathe but they can neither write commercially usable computer programmes nor do they teach younger students.

Curiously, there is a reduction in the scale of UPKs. The number of units has been reduced by 31 per cent and the number of places offered has fallen by 24 per cent.

6. Special training programmes inside regular secondary schools


A few Russian schools offer training programmes that are highly specialized and cater to very specific markets. In some cases, these training programmes can be extraordinarily sophisticated. For instance, in a Moscow suburb, the best students in mathematics and science of the entire city are selected and taught a slightly scaled down curriculum of calculus and aeronautical engineering. After a short period, they start getting involved in the design of real airplanes, tutored by engineers from the leading aeronautical design enterprises of Moscow. They are given the structural calculus tasks required to design and optimize airframe parts.

By the time these students graduate they know as much aeronautical engineering and calculus as fully-fledged engineering students. They also have hands-on experience of aircraft design. As a result, they move automatically to the leading aeronautical engineering schools while keeping up their association with the aircraft design enterprises. They graduate earlier and move seamlessly to the same enterprises with which they were formerly associated.

In many ways, these are very ambitious programmes, going way beyond the basic idea of offering practical work at schools. These are the Russian versions of 'magnet schools', catering to high achieving students. This is in line with the long-standing Soviet tradition of tracking high performers in special schools. Music, sports and foreign languages are the typical areas in which highly selective programmes are offered.

A more usual example is that of Moscow schools offering training in typing, both in the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, and in the drafting of business correspondence. Such courses were created in 1979 and were offered to girls and, curiously, to boys who had 'A' in English. Those who did not want to participate could go to a regular inter-school UPK. As early as 1979, these courses were very market-oriented, since touch-typing, especially on a Latin keyboard, remained a scarce skill. This could be a good source of additional income or a ticket to get an office job for those who failed entrance examinations to higher education and still wanted to have a white-collar occupation.

The overall size of this effort is difficult to gauge in present times, given the more or less spontaneous nature of these initiatives. Schools are trying to offer applied or vocational courses after hours and also trying to strike deals with nearby enterprises. However, given the ad hoc nature of these initiatives, they are not captured by official statistics.

Despite the visibility of some of the better-known programmes, these remain relatively modest initiatives in the world of secondary education in Russia with its 60,000 primary-secondary schools scattered throughout the territory.

7. Production in the vocational and technical schools


In secondary schools, production is a somewhat artificial appendage, forcing students to perform tasks which are not at all in line with what they expect to do later or with the core subjects taught. When the school emphasis may be on mathematics or science, they engage in repetitive woodwork or electrical assemblies, as a matter of pedagogical doctrine, without a full sense of commitment.

In contrast, these manual activities are the very essence of what graduates of vocational and technical schools do. Therefore, these schools go deeper than any others into training cum production activities. And just about all of them engage in production, in contrast to the ineffectual situation within academic secondary schools. In them, production is no longer a side activity but the central core of the programme, engaging the students in longer hours and in more complex production which tends to be related to the trades offered by the school. In fact, most students master the entire productive cycle of their trades. They become real workers. To Western observers, the quality of the work is disappointing, but that is another issue.

Textile schools have spinning machines and looms which produce fabric that is sold on the market. Car-mechanic schools repair vehicles for outside clients. Agricultural schools produce grain or cattle for the market at large - in fact, some of them end up being major agricultural enterprises with a school appended.

Mechanical schools receive orders to machine parts and assemblies from the enterprise with which they are associated.

The typical vocational or technical school was built in order to prepare trained personnel for a given enterprise. It was located very near the enterprise and depended on this enterprise for equipment, instructors for the practical activities, internships and jobs for the graduates. In line with this symbiotic relationship, the factories used to subcontract with the school for the manufacturing or assembly of the parts it needed in its own production lines. For instance, a school in Minsk, across the street from a tractor factory, had its students busy machining wheels and other parts for the tractors. This was considered a suitable arrangement for the schools, as it provided practical experience to students and some extra revenue that was always welcome.

In addition, there used to be an elaborate central system for the production of training and pedagogical equipment. Each individual school was put in charge of a set of items and a central agency of the Ministry of Education produced an illustrated catalogue listing all the equipment available. This agency also sold the equipment to the other schools in the country. Together, these schools produced 3,500 different items, some of them quite complex and sophisticated. Russian schools, both vocational and academic, always relied heavily on practical and laboratory classes. Practically all the physics, biology and chemistry school laboratories used equipment produced by the technical and vocational schools. For instance, many schools in Moscow have in their laboratories a very large programmable calculator - bigger than an attach?case - used to teach students how to use and programme their hand-held counterparts.

These instruments were one of the main production items of vocational and technical schools. In the period of the Soviet Union, there were 7,000 technical and vocational schools. This is the size of the demand from these schools alone. When we add the 60,000 or more academic schools (primary and secondary), we can gauge the size of the market for this equipment.

Hence, production at technical and vocational schools is taken far more seriously than production in academic schools. Compared to the amateurish and somewhat precarious production processes of academic schools, vocational and technical institutions can be quite competent. After all, the skills involved are their main concern.

Most vocational schools also had elaborate schemes to produce consumer goods or subcontract the fabrication of parts from local factories. The number of hours spent in production workshops is considerable (it used to be one day per week, but present patterns are more varied) and by the time they graduate, students have a very good idea - one way or another - of what factory production is about.

However, the financial crisis has completely destroyed these lines of production. Schools no longer buy classroom equipment. They do not have the resources, even though their equipment is obsolete, worn out or both. They lack resources to buy equipment because they no longer can find customers to buy the equipment that used to provide them with the revenues. They have entered the classical vicious circle of poverty.

In addition, factories do not need the help - or the competition - of schools with their own production lines. Most of them can barely produce enough to keep their workers busy. It makes no sense to subcontract to schools when they have idle capacity in their own workshops.

Quite clearly, the picture of production inside technical schools has changed considerably. The statistics predating the collapse of the Soviet Union are of no use in understanding the present situation.

To obtain a better picture of what has happened recently with regard to production in schools, 25 vocational school principals from Pyatigorsk (Stavropol krai) were given a questionnaire to fill in. The results gave some indications of the situation, even if they cannot be considered as representative of the country. Unfortunately, it is highly improbable that better data covering a broader sample can have been collected on the subject.

Five of the principals stated that their workshops were used for at least five years to produce directly for the market. Two indicated that this has happened in the last two to three years, and five, 'very recently'. Nine are planning to sell their output in the market. Only five schools are not interested in marketing their products. In other words, only one fifth of the sample is not turning to the production of goods for the market as a means of increasing revenues.

These are very telling data. Stavropol is a poor southern province of the Russian Federation, quite removed from the effervescence of Moscow and St. Petersburg. Anything that happens in Stavropol must also be common to other parts of Russia.

What this survey tells us is that schools are moving at a high speed towards finding direct markets for their production. The collapse of the school equipment network and the lack of demand from their parent factories meant that vocational and technical schools were left on their own. This survey also means that schools are reacting. If nobody comes in to tell them what to produce and to buy it, they have to go out and find out what it is that the market wants.

From passive managers of goods contracted by other institutions, they have to become aggressive salesmen of whatever they think the market might buy from them.

Ministers of training discuss with school principals how to sell apricot marmalade and how much to charge per kilo. Schools envisage their transformation into tourist hotels, if they happen to be located in attractive areas. Apparel formerly sold through the parent enterprises now has to be sold in stores that are being improvised or to the new retailers that are mushrooming around the country. This means that the school has to make critical decisions concerning design, fashion and pricing. To sum up, schools were collective enterprises, working through the web of public networks and receiving contracts from their direct sponsors. Now they are becoming capitalist enterprises, selling in an open market, like everybody else.

In many ways, production in Russian schools is becoming more like production in the schools of the developing world. Instead of a centrally programmed activity, supplying the parent enterprise or a central buying agency, it is now left to the initiative of the individual schools. There are, however, two main differences. First, they have had time to learn, when things were easier and automatic. Second, they are forced to do it, due to the financial crisis which has had a profound effect on them, as will be discussed later.

8. The learning experience


Sooner or later it is necessary to ask about the educational dimension of the work experience. What do the students learn from working? How useful is this learning? What are the non-cognitive results? In what ways do the values and attitudes of students change as a consequence of having had firsthand working experience from an early age?

The results have not been as effective as expected. During the course of primary and middle school years, students were taught to develop some respect for the working class by reading required newspapers or fiction stories glorifying workers, studying in biased textbooks and meeting with carefully selected workers at school functions dedicated to the Soviet working class. Nevertheless, the students lost their awe and respect the moment they were old enough to participate in the internships. There the harsh reality of an ordinary factory was encountered.

Thus, the experiment to create in students a positive attitude to manual work may have failed - unfortunately, there is no reliable empirical research to confirm or deny this assumption. In some cases, it clearly led to cynicism. Yet, for unexpected reasons, the internship had a positive effect on students' performance in later school years. After the factory internships, students were driven to study more diligently, in order to have a better chance of getting into higher education, rather than going back to bleak factory life.

In the course of the years, the need to combine education with work lost its momentum, especially in cities (collective farms continued to rely heavily on student's help during harvest time), whilst official ideology started to stress other reasons for production, such as professional orientation and as a practical preparation for life.

Perhaps we can say that from a pedagogical perspective, the inclusion of 'labour' components as part of the general school curriculum made more sense than the internships. They contributed to children's motor development, self-esteem, and, indeed, practical preparation for life.

Nevertheless, the situation of vocational and technical schools has little in common with that of academic schools - which never took production too seriously. For this reason, the interest in analyzing the Russian experience lies more in the vocational and technical field, where production activities were conducted with a great sense of commitment. The comments that follow focus on these training programmes.

The acquisition of skills sounds easy to gauge, since there are processes of certification at the end of the learning. But even there, the criteria to get certification in different skills are notoriously weak and heterogeneous. To judge by the quality of the workmanship displayed at vocational schools, the level can be quite low in many - but not all - schools. Be that as it may, it is in vocational and technical schools that Russians learn their trades and where productive activities play a major role in the curricula.

One should not confuse a vocational or technical school certificate with that of a secondary academic. Vocational and technical schools have always offered long programmes, lasting thousands of hours, compared with the somewhat amateurish and improvised training associated with secondary academic schools. The market can clearly differentiate between the two kinds and recent data indicate that, particularly in the case of vocational school graduates, their skills are well rewarded (de Moura Castro, 1994).

However, it is quite clear that the bulk of the productive work in schools is not organized around tasks which increase in complexity and modulate the degree of difficulty and learning to the pace of students. Most of the production work is repetitive and essentially very easy. Students experience the kind of repetitive work that is typical in conventional production lines, such as feeding parts to a press, operating a loom or machining the same tractor wheels. Without question, something is learned in these repetitive activities. Yet, casual observation suggests that a plateau is soon reached, long before the students move on to something else. Too many schools prepare students for easy and repetitive tasks.

In other words, the school appears as a place where you repeat a watered-down version of what work is going to be. And in this setting, the productive activities complete the preparation of the students by mimicking factory life.

What is worrisome is that school production is not seen as a unique moment to experiment, to do what is not commercially viable in a regular factory. Instead, it is seen as putting the beginners to work on something simple. For instance, in a school attached to a textile factory, the looms are older and do not permit the same levels of quality as in the factory - which by Western standards are quite basic. Learning is narrowly understood as imitating the simplest production process used by the factories, and accepting a lower level of quality because they are students.

This is similar to what takes place in schools in developing countries which try to produce - in fact, it is possible that the Soviet Union may have been the source of inspiration for these experiments. In contrast, the relatively few technical schools in industrialized countries have a different philosophy with regard to production lines. They tend to view production as an experimental activity, to try out new ideas and to engage in the development of products and processes. Certain schools exist which only do the R&D stage of any production. Once a product is ready for production, it is offered to someone else to produce, usually a former student who may want to create a new enterprise.

In particular, Russian schools prepare workers to operate in factories which practice a high degree of division of labour. Students are not encouraged to master the non-manual aspects of production, such as design, production planning and control, cost monitoring, quality evaluation, marketing and purchasing.

A technical school in Moscow was planning to create an assembly line to produce commercially simple computers, based on the Z-80 processor. This computer had been developed by an independent research group. This is exactly the opposite of what good technical schools in the West would do. They would develop a new computer but refuse to produce it commercially, since the assembly of printed circuits and cabinets is merely a repetitive work with insufficient learning content. They would encourage an outside enterprise to produce it.

To be fair, the best Russian technical schools also do some creative R&D. The airframe engineering programme has been mentioned. We could also cite a school in St. Petersburg (attached to a nuclear submarine factory) where teachers were doing research on new alloys for metal-cutting tools which seemed as state-of-the-art as anything the leading Western schools are doing.

Looking at the broadest question, does the experience of production help in forging a working ethos among vocational and technical education students? Unfortunately, this central question cannot be properly answered with any satisfactory degree of accuracy. Be that as it may, visits to schools and factories seem to indicate that the major variable explaining the consequences of the production experience is the ethos of the enterprise associated with the school. Given the proximity between enterprises and the vocational and technical schools created to prepare their workers, it is the work environment at the factory that will largely determine whether the student will love or hate work as a result of producing while still in school. A survey of enterprises done in connection with another paper by the authors suggested that many Russian enterprises elicit a very antagonistic reaction from their workers. Students attending schools catering to these enterprises are likely to have a similarly negative attitude. Fortunately, not all enterprises are like that.

Another way of looking at the issue is to ask whether vocational schools with their strong emphasis on production have created workers who are able to adapt to new situations and, in particular, to create their own jobs and small firms. It should be clear from the outset that one cannot evaluate the value-added of a segment of a three-year long educational process. Yet, we can look at the impact of the whole educational package and evaluate how much it may have helped students. It seems that against all odds and dire predictions, vocational school graduates are relatively better off in the job market than graduates of other institutions (namely, technical and academic). Their unemployment rate is slightly lower than that of technical graduates and dramatically better than those of academic secondary schools (with the caveat that comparisons with the academic schools are based on less reliable evidence) (de Moura Castro, 1994). If this is the case, it is likely that production experience, which is more intense in these schools, may have helped them to succeed in the labour market.

That, of course, does not invalidate previous comments on the shortcomings and weaknesses of the present system of exposing students to productive activities.

The following conclusions seem relatively safe:

(i) The average Russian vocational or technical school systematically puts its students to producing something simple and unpretentious. A ceiling in the learning curve for that activity is reached long before the students move on to something else. By contrast, the average Western vocational schools rarely, if ever, engage in production.

(ii) Both in Russia and in the West, the leading-edge technical schools may have projects which are creative and bold. In other words, the higher end schools on either side have a greater probability of having more creative projects that are done on behalf of outside customers.

(iii) But even the more sophisticated Russian technical schools also engage their students in simpler production activities. The R&D projects are not sufficient to occupy the hundreds of hours of student time that the curriculum allocates to productive activities.

(iv) Production is expected to bring changes that go beyond the directly productive skills. It is hoped that it will create a more favourable attitude towards work and, in particular, towards manual work. Whether the experience with production will contribute towards creating a positive work ethos probably depends more on the particular conditions of the enterprise associated with the school rather than on any particular feature of the 'education cum production' programme.

(v) When we look at the entire package of vocational schools with their strengths and weaknesses, it seems clear that the institutions where 'education cum production' was taken to its most extreme levels, are offering their students a package of skills which turns out to be well received in the market. Graduates of PTUs are doing better than predicted by most Russian and foreign observers.

Prejudice against manual occupations is a universal feature of societies, varying only in level or intensity. Indeed, statements about the superiority of non-manual work can be found in old Egyptian writings. Even in European countries of today it stills exists. It would not be realistic to expect that it would have disappeared in Russia. The meaningful question is whether the Russian experience of putting students to work attenuates this prejudice. The opinions among Russians are very contradictory. Some claim that the entire experiment is a failure and that nothing can be gained by it. Others question the sense of getting students used to the authoritarian and obsolete realities of the factories, before taking up jobs in these same factories.

This is a very frustrating situation. Earlier, official ideology assumed that this prejudice had been wiped out. Now, the mood tends to be quite corrosive towards anything that comes from the old regime. The researchers and teachers spoken to probably exaggerated the inefficacy of the school-work experience in attenuating prejudice and creating a more positive attitude towards work. No concrete evidence could be found either way.

Chapter III. The economics of school production in Russia



This section reviews the financial consequences of production in schools. To what extent do the revenues from the sales of goods and services have a significant weight on budgets or on the earnings of school staff?

The numbers from the survey suggest that the revenues of sales can be quite substantial. Indeed, out of a total of 25 schools, one of them acquires financial independence and in five it generates revenues which are not far from half of the total budget. In another five schools, it ranges from 20 to 40 per cent of revenues and in four it lies between 10 and 20 per cent. In 13 schools it is less than 10 per cent and there are five schools that do not get any revenues. In other words, in about half of the schools, the revenues account for more than 20 per cent of the budget. And, if anything, these revenues are likely to increase, as suggested by the nine schools that are planning to market their products more openly. When we consider that payrolls account for about one fourth of the PTU cost - about as much as generated by selling products - it easy to see the importance of these revenues in increasing the take-home pay of teachers.

Principals were also asked what proportion of the revenues they could generate by sales, if they were given full freedom of action in these matters. It is curious to see that the distribution is practically the same as that for the revenues they already earn. In other words, they seem to have already all the freedom they need, although it was not admitted.

This is a very important finding, consistent with first-hand observation of Russian vocational and technical schools. Westerners have always heard about the extreme centralization inherent in the command economy. Indeed, according to regulations that are still prevailing, every one of the 5,000-odd vocational and technical schools are directly managed by the Ministry of Education in Moscow. Yet, in practice these Russian schools have a high degree of autonomy. Indeed, these schools have more financial autonomy than the average Western vocational school. They buy and sell as they please, regardless of what Moscow may think or say. In the wake of the economic crisis and the loss of legitimacy of central authorities, school principals have acquired a great degree of autonomy. They are more or less on their own in terms of generating resources to prevent themselves from starving.

The data also show that the production mix of schools has changed enormously. Data for Russia as a whole indicate that the share of manufacturing goods in school production decreased from 85 per cent to 67 per cent, while the share of services increased from 15 per cent to 33 per cent. More details can be obtained from the Stavropol sample. Only one school is still producing school books and none indicated the production of any workshop or school laboratory equipment. Only two still subcontract to a single enterprise. By contrast, 21 are willing to engage in production contracts with any interested customers. What is interesting to notice is that already nine schools are producing without contracts, i.e. in the hope of finding customers in the market. This is a very recent development. Schools have been quite willing to produce anything, as long as they could find a buyer beforehand. But they were quite reticent about producing for an open market. By the end of 1993, almost one third of the schools were taking this bolder step.

The school production inevitably reflects the nature of their workshops and facilities. The following products were mentioned: machine tools, hand-tools, metal products, garments and footwear, agricultural products, printed materials, etc. In other words, schools produce a wide range of goods, anything that can find a retail market. They seem to have neither big and expensive products nor capital goods. They are in the retail business. They aim their production at the average Russian household (perhaps some of the machine tool and agriculture schools could have a different outlet, but they tend to be an exception).

Russian citizens have been starved of consumer goods for as long as they can remember. The new production in schools has been targeted on to this final consumer. The schools need all the revenues they can get from these sales. The question is for how long will this market survive, given mounting competition from the new private sector and from cheap imports.

Chapter IV. The future of production and the turbulent march towards the market economy

1. The hopes of school administrators and the hard facts of budget cuts


Western experience with production in schools is very meager, compared to the Eastern European countries and, as mentioned at the beginning of this booklet, the results tend to be quite disappointing. In the more competitive Western societies, schools have serious difficulties in managing efficiently the everyday routines of production and producing something that can be sold on the market. One could expect that as East European societies embark on a market economy, they would think twice before insisting on producing in schools with the same level of intensity. The first reaction of Western observers is to advise the Russians to get out of production quickly, as increased competition will drive them out anyway.

However, school administrators believe that in a market economy their new role is to produce for the market. Schools are seen as productive organizations that produce according to the economic system.

In the command economy they received orders from the government. In a market economy they go out and try to sell to those who want to buy.

The financial crisis is already a reality and the revenues from production are seen as the only means of breaking even. Therefore, this gives added impetus to the attempts to make schools produce more and to increase their revenues.

Western eyes may be struck by the modest share of production revenues in the total budget of schools. Why do schools try so hard and get so little? One reason to explain the high commitment of the staff to production activities has to do with the bizarre structure of school costs (de Moura Castro, 1994). Schools spend vast sums of money on heating, food and many other non-teaching expenditures. Hence, out of the entire school budget, teachers' take-home pay accounts for no more than 20 per cent. Therefore, a vocational school which has production revenues corresponding to 20 per cent of the total budget can still use them to double the teachers' salaries. Not a trivial motivation for those who teach at such schools.

Visitors to Russian vocational schools are also struck by the total commitment of staff to production activities. In fact, this is all the staff and principals want to discuss. If there is any major force driving Russian vocational and technical schools, it is the imperative to produce and sell - or even sell without producing - as is the case of schools which rent office space. In the past, perhaps doctrines and instructions from Moscow played a preponderant role in pushing them in this direction. This is no longer the case. In a situation where schools are trying to survive in a difficult environment, increasing take-home pay takes precedence over any other priorities.

In order to compensate for the collapse of the previous links with a parent company, direct marketing to final consumers has started to replace subcontracting production, as was done before. And, of course, the voluminous production of teaching materials has come to a halt as a result of the financial crisis and the lack of funds for buying equipment.

There is also a vigorous attempt to develop new products and to move into non-conventional areas, such as converting summer-camp facilities into hotels. Agricultural products are being marketed more aggressively and how to search for the highest prices is being grasped quickly.

Some schools use the revenues of production in creative ways, such as by the purchase of computers that, once equipped with software, are sold on the market.

"This is the case of an aggressive vocational school in Minsk which purchased the computers with the foreign exchange earned in producing parts for tractors slated for export. The principal of this school attended a seminar abroad and learned about CAD software. Upon returning, he imported dozens of computers and installed the same CAD software, in order to sell to other schools and to factories. Several other schools assemble computers from imported components. A school in Tashkent included in the studies reviewed by CESO had assembled around 1,500 computers in the year it was visited. Another school in Moscow is also assembling PC clones with imported components".

Based on the above data and on many personal interviews with principals and educators, it seems fair to conclude that Russian educators think production in schools is still the way forward. They believe that this is a source of funds that has to be tapped. Many schools are moving toward more aggressive marketing of their products. Some want to sell their apricot preserves in the free market. Others do indeed earn money making ceramic pots, stools, tables, shirts or assembling computers out of Taiwanese components.

In many vocational schools, thanks to earnings from production, salaries of instructors can be doubled. Schools do not see production as a relic of the communist past. Under present circumstances, the pedagogical arguments in favour or against production in schools have become a moot point. The financial crisis forces schools to produce in order to meet certain very basic needs.

Yet, Russia is moving towards a market economy, where vocational schools may have greater difficulties in marketing their wares. Indeed, as competition increases and efficiency becomes a more critical factor in economic survival, can these schools continue or eventually expand their production? The experience of market economies suggests how difficult it is for schools to compete with regular factories when the latter are efficient and aggressive.

2. New forms of production organization


Traditionally, schools have had contracts with the local factories or responded to requests from the government office in charge of coordinating production. This is no longer so, for the reasons mentioned above. Hence, schools have decided to face the market as well as they can.

But the move to the market economy is also generating innovations in the organization and ownership of the productive process. Already during the Soviet period, some co-operatives were created in order to better operate the production activities. Under these schemes, students were hired and paid for their work, as if they were regular workers in a factory. This was an orderly process, strictly within the prevailing norms and regulations. Most of the net revenues were used to buy equipment and to renew the schools.

However, as the financial situation has deteriorated over the last few years, these revenues have started to be used to complement the salaries of teachers, who have lost much with the recent inflation. Some of these production activities are becoming detached from the school and seem more like plain profit-making enterprises. But there is no master plan being followed. There are different modalities of organization, ownership and revenue sharing. This is not at all a process orchestrated by any local or central government.

When asked how they combine commercial production and training, the answers of Stavropol principals are somewhat ambiguous, probably reflecting their unwillingness to admit the true commercial nature of the operation. Only two schools claim that production is not part of training. Yet, when asked who is carrying out the production there are twenty answers indicating workshop instructors and teachers, while only 13 mention students being involved in production. More than that, seven schools mention the presence of production workers from the outside and five state that no school staff is involved in the production.

What seems to be happening is that progressively the school shops are becoming an independent money-making activity for the schools. The idea of production as a means of students applying what was learned loses ground to the financial realities of vocational schools. Indeed, the opinions of the principals reflect these ambiguities. Two go as far as to state that commercial production will displace training altogether. Six think that production could harm learning, and three believe that it could lead to specializations which are too narrow. By contrast, 12 believe that production will require high-level skills in order to make their products competitive (first-hand observation does not confirm this statement, as most products tend to be quite crude).

It is very instructive to contrast the consistency of the principals - answers to most other questions to the contradictions and ambiguities that prevail when asked about the relations between money making and training. Even in a remote town in the Stavropol province the question is embarrassing. The association of learning and production has been a characteristic of Russian education and acknowledging that this may be collapsing is not easy.

But even more embarrassing would have been a question concerning the fate of the revenues and the legality of the operation. As suggested by the answers, some of these operations no longer bear any resemblance to 'education cum production'. And the revenues are not appropriated by the state, according to Russians who are familiar with these operations. It seems that most schools use the revenues to increase the salaries of teachers and administrators. And nobody states under what rules these resources are shared.

These production schemes have the undeniable merit of allowing the schools to survive, which is no minor feat under the present economic circumstances. Yet, their legality is not altogether clear and the attitude of central administrators is quite variable. In Moscow, authorities seem quite liberal and tend to look the other way. Nizhni Novgorod administrators claim that they do not allow these private appropriations of public resources to take place. But the hardships of surviving such a serious financial crisis may predominate.

3. Production without education


As the demand for enrolment in some conventional trades dwindles, as is the case with mechanical courses in some schools, the empty shops are finding new tenants. Some more enterprising teachers are hiring workers outside and using the workshops to develop their own production lines. The school management finds it difficult to object, considering the deterioration of salaries.

There is increasingly more production without education taking place in the public schools. In some of them, the teachers organize their own enterprises and hire outside workers. Still in others, the enterprises that use the school production facilities are not associated with the school or the teachers. They merely rent the space and the workshop. Glasunov cited (de Moura Castro, 1994), in: "Tradition and disruption in Russian vocational education", reports that one third of production is in the hands of outsiders.

Some time in the future, the 5,000-odd Russian vocational and technical schools will have to face the fact that many of the skills they offer do not correspond to what the market wants. In all modern economies, there is a progressive shift of skills and industries from one area to another as a result of technological change and the geographic shifts in competitiveness. However, the recent crisis and disruptions that are taking place in Russia may accelerate change beyond the capability of the system to deal with it.

Mirroring this change, a progressive dissociation between training and production seems to be taking place. This issue poses legal and administrative problems, in addition to the realization that one of the most consistent features of Russian education is crumbling. Yet, there is another way of looking at the same tendency. If the thousands of workshops could be progressively converted into private factories operated by former instructors, the problem of unemployment of instructors in the surplus areas could be attenuated.

Technical schools will have to respond to the demand of an economy that is fundamentally changing. It is easy to anticipate that the training requirements of the new system will not be the same. That being the case, many areas will have a surplus of instructors which - anywhere in the world - poses a serious social problem and a potential obstacle to change. If this weaning of workshops and instructors could take place along the lines suggested by what is already happening spontaneously, what seems at first sight a problem could very well turn out to be a solution. Instructors could rent or purchase the school equipment in order to produce for the market in areas where this equipment is idle due to a lack of students. The practical means of doing so would have to be ironed out, but the idea is simple and feasible.

Chapter V. What can the Russians learn from their own experience?



The idea of production in schools is at a crossroads. Russia and the other countries of the former Eastern Block have had far more experience in this area than any other country outside of the region. What they have done is no minor achievement and, on balance, the results can be considered as positive. However, the economic crisis and the nature of the work experience acquired are putting this tradition of production in a very difficult predicament. The vital reasons for continuing to produce in schools seems to be becoming increasingly detached from learning. Production is seen as a means of preventing the school from closing down. The students are, at best, the cheap labour that keeps their schools afloat. At worst, they are a nuisance inside an institution where the staff puts most of its energy into production.

While it is difficult to document it with hard data, visits to dozens of schools suggest that production is the paramount concern of school administrators. Whether the revenues are large or small, they make a great difference to their salaries and teachers respond by assigning production activities as their number one goal.

But sooner or later, the markets for the relatively unsophisticated and inefficient production of schools are going to dry up. If Russia manages to shape up its economy, enterprises will, in general, become more efficient and schools will have greater difficulties in competing. At present, it cannot be said that Russian schools are very efficient at production and can easily compete with regular factories. Instead, schools compete because the industry is weak and beset by problems. This may take many years to change, but when firms improve, schools will be left with neither profitable nor with educationally rich production lines.

It seems realistic to think that Russia cannot rely on productive activities either to solve the financial problems of schools or to offer good training to the majority of its students. A clear reassessment of its schools is necessary. New policies which are enlightened and realistic cannot be avoided. Fortunately, there are some moves in the right directions. There is the continuation of a trend to merge schools of different levels, preparing those who leave earlier to become skilled workers, while those who stay longer become technicians, and those who stay up to the higher levels become mid-level supervisors. There is also an attempt to make the duration of training depend on the specific requirements of the trade, rather than being a fixed two- or three-year period. Greater flexibility is also being offered, by having part of the curricula determined locally. Last but not least, the list of 3,000 occupations of many years ago has been consolidated to 257 occupational titles.

The following propositions summarize the Russian experience of production in schools:

(i) The idea of giving young students practical tasks, particularly in the upkeep and cleaning of buildings seems to make much sense. The idea of exposing students to occupational training is, in principle, sound, despite the concrete difficulties of dealing with some occupational families. However, there is a limit beyond which production becomes an activity that encroaches upon student's time and the thin educational content of some of these experiences wears off. In vocational and technical schools this has been the case only too often.

(ii) There is an unavoidable trade-off between optimizing production and optimizing learning in production activities. Russian vocational schools seemed to have traditionally opted for production rather than the enrichment of training. If they want to increase the quality of the training they offer - which seems to be a priority these days - they will have to reconsider the organization of productive activities. The production that enhances learning is more experimental, more difficult to organize and to replicate on a large scale. It is based on the competitive edge of schools in mastering technology rather than in factory-like production.

(iii) In order to respond to the long-term imperative for quality training, Russian schools will have to progressively disengage themselves from productive activities where little learning takes place and increase those activities in which learning takes precedence. The wide variety of models used by Western post-secondary technical institutions seem to point to a way forward that seems to make sense. This requires choosing productive activities that have a greater complexity, a need for more experimentation, higher risks and, perhaps, limited market perspectives. The most forward-looking Western technical and engineering schools realized that some forms of production experience are necessary for preparing the increasingly sophisticated personnel that high technology industry requires. Hence, the multiplication in the number of programmes that offer bridges between school and factories. In these programmes, the financial considerations are secondary and the content of the work is mostly related to industrial R&D. Russians do not have to learn this from foreigners, their own experience is sufficiently rich and illuminating. These new Western models find some counterparts in leading Russian technical schools which also do experimental and state-of-the-art work. It is a matter of generalizing experimental activities.

(iv) In command economies where decisions are taken centrally, the market for school-production is defined and decided by the government. In economies plagued by a scarcity of goods and services, it is easy for schools to sell services on the open markets - which has been the case in Russia in the recent past. But as the efficiency of the productive sector increases, it will become more difficult for schools to compete with institutions that have production as their sole goal. Sooner or