Factory-based Higher Technical Educational Institution

(Russian zavod-vtuz), in the USSR, an institute organized within a large industrial enterprise to provide engineering training for the workers of the enterprise and of other enterprises of a similar type. Some training is conducted while the student is released from regular work (up to five months during an academic year); other training is conducted while the student continues working. These two forms of training alternate weekly, monthly, or by semesters. The learning process closely combines theoretical studies and industrial work in the area of specialization throughout the training period (5½-6 years). The time ratio of industrial work to studies is 1:1. Students in their final year present a thesis and obtain a diploma, which is the same for all higher schools.

The first factory-based higher technical educational institutions (factory schools with a differently organized learning process and with training aimed at narrow, practical goals) were organized in the USSR in 1930, but they were not developed any further. They were organized anew in 1960. In 1971 there were three independent factory-based higher technical educational institutions in the USSR: at the Twenty-second Congress of the CPSU Leningrad Metal-works, the Karaganda Metallurgical Works, and the I. A. Likhachev Moscow Automobile Plant. Factory-based higher technical educational institutions (having the status of branches of higher technical educational institutions) also exist in Rostov, Penza, and elsewhere.