ABSTRACT
Work experience and labour training in the schools of the USSR and Eastern Europe have undergone so many changes over the decades that some observers have been tempted to ascribe the ups and downs to the momentary demands of the economy, or just to the rise and fall of political leaders. On the whole, the fortunes of polytechnical education and work practice in the East European schools have reflected developments in the Soviet Union; but these reflections have not always been exact, and some have departed widely from the general pattern. Polytechnical education enjoyed a brief flourishing after the Revolution, encouraged by Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, but all but vanished without trace during Stalin's time. The drafts of the new labour-training curricula call for a significant strengthening of the polytechnical and vocational guidance orientation, for the expansion of close ties between labour training and other subjects, and for a more active involvement of the pupils in socially useful, productive labour.
