Higher School

an institution of higher learning which, on the basis of secondary (general or special) education, carries out the preparation of highly qualified specialists for practical, pedagogical, scientific, or scholarly activity in the various branches of industry, construction, transportation, communications, agriculture, health care, culture, science, and so forth.

The term “higher school” includes universities, polytechnical and branch institutions (of engineering, agriculture, economics, medicine, law, pedagogy, art, and others), academies, higher schools, schools, colleges, and other institutions.

According to the UNESCO definition, any institution of higher learning which prepares specialists on the basis of a complete secondary education, regardless of the volume of knowledge or level of qualification it gives its students, is considered a higher school. Therefore, in a number of countries, the term includes not only institutions of higher learning (of the type of Soviet institutions of higher learning or foreign universities) but institutions of learning that prepare cadres on the level of Soviet technicums and other institutions of special secondary education.