ABSTRACT
IN THE PAST DECADE RUSSIA AND OTHER NATIONS OF THE FORMER Eastern Bloc have plunged themselves into sweeping reforms in their quest to build more effective economies and to establish free and democratic structures. The reforms in the larger societies triggered and motivated educational changes. At the same time the highly accessible educational systems were the essential prerequisites for these radical societal changes. The massive and radical developments in the countries of “real” socialism brought about enormous dislocation of the societal fabric, and it was only from the mid-1990s that their implications for national education systems started to be more fully appreciated (see, e.g., Cerych, 1995).
