The Soviet-time education was organized in a highly centralized government-run system. Every citizen could obtain any level of education for free and every person was suggested post-educational employment - these were the greatest advantages of the Soviet system. The Soviet Union recognized that foundation of the educational system depended upon complete dedication of the people to the state ideology and “planned economy” goals; this was accomplished by means of thorough psychological and military training, and through specialized but broad education in the fields of engineering, natural sciences, life sciences and social sciences and arts.

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In Imperial Russia, according to the 1897 Population Census, literate people made up 28.4 percent of the population. During the 8th Party Congress of 1919, the creation of the new Socialist system of education was proclaimed the major aim of the Soviet government. The abolition of illiteracy became the primary task in the Russian SFSR.

In accordance with the Sovnarkom (the Soviet Committee of People's Education) decree of December 26, 1919, signed by its head Vladimir Lenin, the new policy of “likbez”, was introduced. Literally, “likbez” comes from the 2 Russian words – ликвидация безграмотности [likvi’datsija biz’gramatnasti] – and means “eradication of illiteracy”. According to this decree all people from 8 to 50 years old were required to become literate in their native language.

The new system of universal compulsory education was established for children. Millions of illiterate adult people all over the country, including residents of small towns and villages, were enrolled in special literacy schools. From the Soviet movies you can learn about the special “evening schools” for working youth – those working all day at the plants and factories and coming to study in the evenings after work.

Komsomol members and Young Pioneer detachments played an important role in the education of illiterate people in villages. The most active phase of likbez lasted until 1939. In 1926, the literacy rate was 56.6 percent of the population. By 1937, according to census data, the literacy rate was 86% for men and 65% for women, making a total literacy rate of 75%.

Research and education in the social sciences was dominated by Marxist-Leninist ideology and supervised by the official organizations. Such domination led to abolition of whole academic disciplines such as genetics. Scholars were purged as they were proclaimed bourgeois and non-Marxist during that period. Most of the abolished branches were rehabilitated later in Soviet history, in the 1960s-1990s (e.g., genetics was in October 1964), although many purged scholars were rehabilitated only in post-Soviet times. In addition, many textbooks - such as history ones - were full of ideology and propaganda, and contained factually inaccurate information.

Another aspect of the inflexibility was the high rate at which pupils were held back and required to repeat a year of school. In the early 1950s, typically 8-10% of pupils in elementary grades were held back a year. This was partly attributable to the pedagogical style of teachers, and partly to the fact that many of these children had disabilities that impeded their performance. In the latter 1950s, however, the Ministry of Education began to promote the creation of a wide variety of special schools (or "auxiliary schools") for children with physical or mental handicaps. Once those children were taken out of the mainstream (general) schools, and once teachers began to be held accountable for the repeat rates of their pupils, the rates fell sharply. By the mid-1960s the repeat rates in the general primary schools declined to about 2%, and by the late 1970s to less than 1%.

The number of schoolchildren enrolled in special schools grew five-fold between 1960 and 1980. However, the availability of such special schools varied greatly from one republic to another. On a per capita basis, such special schools were most available in the Baltic republics, and least in the Central Asian ones. This difference probably had more to do with the availability of resources than with the relative need for the services by children in the two regions.

By the end of the 1960-s, almost 100% of the population were literate, meaning that each citizen of the country had obtained a secondary (high-school) education. About half of the school graduates proceeded to obtain higher education in universities. All education was free. 

Vocabulary

Likbez – Russian “ликбез”, from ликвидация безграмотности [likvi’datsija biz’gramatnasti], was a campaign of eradication of illiteracy in Soviet Russia in the 1920s and 1930s. it was started on December 26, 1919, when Vladimir Lenin signed the Decree of the Soviet government “On eradication of illiteracy among the population of RSFSR”…

Komsomol – Russian “комсомол”, is a syllabic abbreviation word, from the Russian Kommunisticheskiy Soyuz Molodiozhi (Коммунистический союз молодёжи), or "Communist Union of Youth". The organization was established on October 29, 1918.

Pioneer movement - is an organization for children operated by a communist party. Typically children enter into the organization in elementary school and continue until adolescence. The adolescents then typically joined Komsomol or a similar organization.

PTU - Vocational Technical School (Russian: профессиона́льно-техни́ческое учи́лище) – "Professionalno-tehnicheskoye uchilishche" (acronym: PTU; ПТУ) is a Soviet vocational education facility aimed to train qualified industrial workers and servicemen. Such schools are widespread in all post-Soviet countries (usually in every city).

Technicum - Russian: те́хникум, tekhnikum , Russian pronunciation: [‘tehnikum] was a Soviet mass-education facility of "special middle education" category 1 step higher than PTU, but aimed to train low-level industrial managers (foremen, technical supervisors etc.) or specializing in occupations that require skills more advanced than purely manual labor, especially in high-tech occupations (such as electronics). This category remained in use in post-Soviet republics.

Thus technicum may be regarded as labor trade-oriented analogue to Western two-year college. Therefore after the collapse of the Soviet Union many technicums in CIS countries were renamed to colleges.