Institutes for Advanced Teacher Training

in the Soviet Union, institutions for educational and methodological assistance in improving the skills of teachers and other educational personnel. The institutes study, form, and disseminate advanced methods of instruction and training.

The first institutes for advanced teacher training were organized in the USSR in 1938. They were set up under the ministries of education in the Union republics and autonomous republics and under the offices of education on the krai and oblast level. In the school year 1971–72 there were 178 such institutes in the USSR, including 80 in the RSFSR, 27 in the Ukrainian SSR, 19 in Kazakhstan, 13 in Uzbekistan, and eight in Byelorussia. Among the primary organizational forms employed by these institutes are various types of courses requiring attendance and correspondence courses, seminars in methodology, field work groups, and group and individual tutorials. The institutes participate with the regular teacher-training institutions and scientific research institutions in organizing pedagogic lectures, in holding conferences on theory and practice, and in producing teacher-training exhibits. To promote self-study by teachers and other educational workers, the institutes create curricula, thematic assignments, and lists of recommended reading and publish methodological literature and study aids for teachers through local publishing offices.

On the Union republic level, and in the case of the central institutes in the RSFSR, Ukrainian SSR, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, the institutes are also entrusted with the task of advanced training for supervisory personnel in the educational field and for providing methodological assistance to institutes in the autonomous republics and on the krai, oblast, interregional, okrug, and municipal levels.