Navigating a ‘zombie’ system: youth transitions from vocational education in post‐Soviet Russia

Abstract

In recent years sociologists of youth have drawn attention to the growing disparity between the stated goals of education and labour market policies on the one hand, and the changing priorities, choices and experiences of young people on the other. This article explores a similar disparity in the transitions of young people graduating from vocational training (IVET) colleges in post‐Soviet Russia. While the IVET system continues to attempt to foster an ideal‐type transition from school to work, the quality of the jobs available to young people at the end of this transition has been vastly undermined by the collapse of the old Soviet economy. Rather than following straightforward transitions into industrial and agricultural enterprises, graduates of the IVET system are focused on the perceived opportunities available to them through the newly expanded further and higher education sectors. In this context, as in many Western countries, transitions from IVET colleges have become both ‘destandardised’ and ‘individualised’; the young people in the research were taking individual responsibility for their labour market prospects by pursuing prolonged periods of combined work and part‐time study. In exploring their experiences of transitions through emerging educational structures, however, the article identifies familiar disadvantages rooted in social background.

Notes

1. This mirrors developments elsewhere in Eastern Europe, with young people generally seeking to improve their positions in post‐Socialist labour markets through the pursuit of further qualifications (see, for example, Kovatcheva 2001: 41–43).

2. In the UK, for example, the growing necessity for young people to make choices from a range of options, but the differential nature of their ability to do so, has been explored by Ball et al. (2002a) in their research on young people from minority ethnic backgrounds entering the higher education system (see also Reay 1998 and Ball et al. 2002b).

3. The major relevant publications are the journal of the Institute for the Development of Vocational Education (Professional’noe Obrazovanie, or ‘Professional Education’) and the weekly Uchitel’skaia Gazeta (Teachers’ Journal).

4. For a fuller exposition of these changes, see Walker (2006).

5. As noted in a recent World Bank report (Gill et al. 2000: 91): ‘vocational institutions have little means or incentive to learn about their graduates’ performance in the labour market as a basis for making adjustments in the supply’.

6. Schwartz (2003: 54) calculates that while industrial output fell by approximately half during the 1990s, employment reduced by around one‐third. Interpretations of why enterprises have adjusted through a reduction in wage payment and working hours have been various. A number of commentators have pointed to the existence of a ‘socialist’ corporate culture, according to which ‘paternalistic’ enterprise managers have been reluctant to issue mass redundancies (Broadman and Recanatini 2001). Relatedly, Commander and Tolstopiatenko (1996) have argued that unemployment has been the subject of negotiation between enterprises and local authorities eager to keep redundancies to a minimum. In contrast to this, Schwartz presents data from case studies of industrial enterprises which indicate that the employment of ‘reserve’ labour in the productive sector has not been politically motivated, but has been economically rational. He argues that enterprises have used excess labour to cope with the acute technological and structural degradation of the post‐Soviet economy, depending on holding an oversized reserve workforce that can be called upon to fulfil contracts quickly, as and when it is possible to do so.

7. Indeed, Karpov (2005: 36) points out that since university lecturers are only required to provide teaching twice a year, they may be responsible for tuition at 6 or 7 branches at a time, while entrance requirements are generally minimal (Ishkov et al. 2005: 3). In addition, the OECD notes that few attempts have been made to redesign traditional courses in order that they are suitable for distance learning, nor are the resources for this (access to the internet, use of video cassette recordings, CD‐ROM and other computer‐based technologies) widely available (OECD 1998: 75). Berulava makes the same point, while also noting that many deans of branches have no previous experience of teaching in higher education (2004: 99).

8. A typical example of the type of institution emerging is the ‘Regional Financial‐Economic Institute’, which is based in a single office in the ‘New Town’ (Novii Gorod) area of Ul’ianovsk, and which offers only part‐time (zaochno) study, has no state‐sponsored places and only teaches economics and accounting.