p The experience accumulated by the USSR in cultural reforms and the all-round development of education is of special importance for the African countries that have taken the path of national revival. It is extremely valuable for Africa, because it answers the question of how inadequate national personnel can be quickly and efficiently trained, relying chiefly on internal resources. Addressing the AllUnion Congress of Teachers in 1968, Leonid Brezhnev said: "To use school terminology, one might say that the most exacting teacher—history—gave the highest mark to our country on the subject of ’people’s education’.”  [242•1  It is only natural that Africa is seeking to adopt many Soviet methods, and the Soviet Union is readily sharing its experience.

p Abdou Moumouni, a prominent African pedagogue, wrote, for instance, about the "remarkably convincing example" of the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries, where "the goal of education is continually to raise the cultural, technical and scientific level of the people, and train the greatest number of specialised cadres with very high qualifications, in order to have uninterrupted expansion of production in all fields and construct the communist society".  [242•2 

p The experience of socialist reforms in the Soviet Asian Republics, which used to be the most backward regions of tsarist Russia, is of tremendous importance for the African countries. It proves that socio-economic backwardness can be eliminated during the life-span of a single generation. Like the African countries, the republics of the Soviet East had an underdeveloped economic structure, a low level of 243 political and class consciousness among the working people, and staggering illiteracy.

p The elimination of illiteracy among the adult population of the USSR is probably its most striking experience. It is really hard to imagine that, in as little as two decades, the Soviet constituent republics, many of whicli had almost 100 per cent illiteracy, had completely eradicated it. This was only possible because the native population learnt how to read and write in their mother tongues, with many peoples and ethnic groups receiving their written language as late as the first years of Soviet government. It is not by chance, therefore, that many African politicians and scholars have spoken in favour of learning primarily from the Soviet Union how to combat illiteracy by using local languages.  [243•3 

p The way the national systems of education are established in Africa today is very similar to the development of education in the USSR in the first years of Soviet power. Just as the USSR at that time, African independent countries are now focussing primary attention on a numerical increase in experts, on eradication of illiteracy, involvement of women in the education process, and the training of personnel with medium and high qualifications.

p It is not, of course, easy for African leaders to adopt Soviet methods. Account should also be taken of Africa’s great dependence on the imperialist monopolies, which are doing their best to streamline the development of African education according to Western patterns (slow changes in the existing structure of education over many decades) and to block the realisation of the principle of a single school, which is the cornerstone of any truly democratic educational policy.

p Neocolonialist advisers warn Africans against a too rapid growth in the number of students, against complete Africanisation of the teaching staff, against radical changes in the content of school education, and, more generally, against any radical reforms in the education system. Many Western pedagogues working in Africa are trying to lay emphasis on agriculture in developing education, to extend its humanitarian aspects, gear it to the exclusive use of European languages, and scale down the campaigns to combat illiteracy.

p Internal reactionary forces in the newly free African countries take the same stand. Many of their representatives were educated in the West and adhere to "Western standards" of educational development. The sharp ideological struggle going on in Africa over educational reform is very indicative of the difficulties encountered by the African countries in developing their national education systems. Whatever the zigzags in this struggle, one thing is absolutely clear: an ever increasing number of Africans are learning from their own experience that the means and methods of developing education that have been so brilliantly realised in the Soviet Union and other socialist countries are the right ones.

p Those African countries that have embarked upon socialist-oriented social development offer the most graphic example of how the Soviet experience may be applied in Africa. These countries are implementing thorough-going reforms in the development of culture, including education. They see their most important task in creating their own intellectuals in various fields because, as Lenin emphasised, "without the guidance of experts in the various fields of knowledge, technology and experience, the transition to socialism will be impossible, because socialism calls for a conscious mass advance to greater productivity of labour compared with capitalism, and on the basis achieved by capitalism".  [244•4 

p The inclusion of African languages in the educational process is one of the greatest achievements of the socialist- oriented African countries. Despite allegations by Western advisers and local sceptics that the supplanting of European languages would have a negative effect on the development of education, the governments of Guinea, Tanzania, and some other countries have been making wide use of local languages in schools and have scored remarkable successes. The teaching of European languages is not, of course, ignored, because they give African students access to the achievements of world science and technology.

p The socialist-oriented African countries have achieved tangible results in organising nation-wide governmentsponsored campaigns to combat illiteracy, which involve millions of people. Just as in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s, virtually all the literate population participates 245 in these campaigns. A higher level of general education enables the African states to use their labour resources more efficiently. It is indicative that the experience of the USSR in eradicating illiteracy among the adult population has been the subject of discussions and thorough analysis at a number of UNESCO-sponsored international symposia.

p The mobilisation of society’s internal reserves for educational development is also characteristic. The voluntary participation of ordinary people in the construction of schools has become a regular feature in Guinea, Tanzania, and some other countries. This results in sizable savings in budget allocations to pay Western experts and, at the same time, offers an example of a new attitude towards labour and the building of a new society, free from exploitation of man by man.

p The practical experience of Guinea is a good illustration of the close ties between education and life. Schoolchildren in the country are taught socially useful work from their first forms and, by the end of their study, are actively involved in economic development and national construction. The Algerian Government also makes wide use of the experience of the Soviet Union in developing education. The ideas and principles of socialist pedagogics are exerting a growing influence on the development of the national education system. Algerian teachers are using them more and more frequently, having realised that the bourgeois pedagogical models on which the overwhelming majority of African education systems are based, are unable to cope with the complex problems confronting the development of schooling. Many proposals discussed jointly with Soviet teachers at local pedagogical conferences were later incorporated into directives, instructions and recommendations sent by the Algerian Ministry of National Education to the management of educational establishments.

p Soviet experience in training skilled workers on projects still under construction is very popular in Africa, because it makes it possible to train the necessary industrial personnel quickly and in large numbers. This highly effective form of assistance to developing countries, first used on a mass scale by the Soviet Union and then by the other socialist countries, has won recognition throughout the world. The training of personnel in the course of construction and subsequent operation of projects is considered a "positive 246 innovalion by the socialist countries" in a major UNESCO publication Apprendre a etre (To Learn to Be)  [246•5  prepared by an authoritative international commission headed by the French Minister of National Education Edgar Faure.

p The application of Soviet experience even by those countries that have not taken a socialist orientation yields tangible results. There are a number of factors conducive to a more rapid solution of the problem of personnel. The main ones include: the greater role of the state in education and upbringing, the increasingly mass scale of schooling, steppedup activities in adult education, the substitution of local for foreign staff, and financing education chiefly through the use of national resources.

p Planning is also a major factor instrumental in ensuring the comprehensive development of education throughout Africa. Soviet experience in this field is used widely on the continent and there is virtually no African country without a national programme for cultural development.

Many African countries have drafted educational development plans. Tanzania and Togo, for instance, plan to provide schooling for all their children by 1990, and Morocco by 1995. Zambia is introducing compulsory ten-year education. All this illustrates the attractive example of the Soviet Union where it became possible, for the first time in history, to exert a conscious, purposeful influence on the entire system of social relations on the basis of a knowledge and planned use of the laws of socialist society. Even a limited and incomplete use of planning yields tangible results for African countries.