рабфак (рабочий факультет) · 1919–early 1940s

Rabfak (Workers' Faculty)

라브파크 (노동자학부)

Preparatory educational institutions established in Soviet Russia in 1919 and active until the early 1940s. They gave workers and peasants who had little formal schooling an accelerated path to the general education required for university admission, and graduates could enter higher education without entrance examinations. In February 1929 the Central Committee of the VKP(b) adopted a resolution on reservations for young women in VTUZy, technicums, and rabfaks, which set a 25% quota for women on rabfaks attached to technical higher-education institutions.

Related historical events

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (RU) comprehensive Russian Wikipedia article on rabfaks: origins in 1919 under M.N. Pokrovsky, Decree of Sovnarkom RSFSR of 17 September 1920 formalizing the system, growth to over 1,000 rabfaks with ~350,000 students by 1932/33, phasing out by the early 1940s; also notes that some вузы created preparatory departments in 1969 that were informally called rabfaks
  2. Wikipedia (EN) English Wikipedia article: syllabic abbreviation of Рабочий факультет, created by Mikhail Pokrovskii in March 1919, active until the 1940s, intended for adults who had received little formal schooling as fulfilment of revolutionary promises of upward social mobility
  3. docs.historyrussia.org bibliographic record of the 22 February 1929 VKP(b) Central Committee resolution 'On the Reservation for Girls in VTUZy, Technicums, and Rabfaks,' published in Izvestiia TsK VKP(b) No. 7, 20 March 1929; the resolution established a броня (reservation/quota) system for women in technical higher education, technicums, and rabfaks
  4. scientia.global Ingrid Miethe, 'The Workers' Faculty: The Globalisation of Soviet Education,' Scientia Global: traces the rabfak model from 1919 Soviet Russia through its spread to Eastern Europe, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and Mozambique; details the rabfak as an accelerated university-preparatory institution for workers and peasants
  5. soviethistory.msu.edu Mikhail Pokrovskii's 11 September 1919 Narkompros directive 'Regarding Organization of Workers' Faculties at Universities': the foundational document establishing rabfaks as autonomous remedial training institutions to prepare workers and peasants for higher education in the shortest possible time
  6. museum.spbstu.ru St. Petersburg Polytechnic University Museum: centenary article on rabfaks noting that of 98 rabfak graduates in 1925, only 6 were women; documents the early gender imbalance that the 1929 quota was designed to address
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