ABSTRACT
In 1991, the Communist government of the Soviet Union collapsed, and, one after another, the Soviet Republics – including Georgia, Moldavia, White Russia , the Baltic States and the Ukraine – began to secede from the Union. The main priority of the new Russian government, under the leadership of President Boris Yeltsin , was to move from a planned to a free-market economy within a new democratic framework. The new government also promised to initiate signifi cant educational reform. At fi rst, educational change across republics, united by their collective rejection of the communist ideology, was characterized by a striking uniformity. However, as each republic began to chart its own course, their education-reform agendas increasingly began to take on a distinct character (Rust et al., 1994).
