Upper elementary school

Upper elementary school [вища початкова школа; vyshcha pochatkova shkola; Russian: висшее началное училище; vysshee nachalnoe uchilishche). Four-year schools established in 1912 in the Russian Empire to replace city schools. They were created in order to facilitate admission to secondary schools for the less-privileged social groups. The program of upper elementary schools resembled that of the four lower classes of secondary schools, except for the fact that foreign languages were not part of the curriculum. Upon graduation from upper elementary schools students could enter the fifth grade of the secondary-school system upon successful completion of foreign-language entry examinations. Tuition fees were charged, and all instruction was in Russian. In some schools supplementary one- or two-year vocational courses were organized. ln 1917 there were 312 upper elementary schools in Ukraine, and in 1920, 1,210. The schools were abolished with the Soviet Ukrainian education reform of 1920.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]