Workers' universities

Workers' universities (robitnychi universytety). Institutions offering a general continuing education that existed in the USSR and in the Ukrainian SSR from 1925 to 1931. In Ukraine the institutions were under the jurisdiction of the Main Political-Educational Committee of the People's Commissariat of Education of the Ukrainian SSR, which was charged with the development of adult education. The universities offered an evening program designed to upgrade workers' political awareness, educational level, and job-related skills. They also prepared working-class cadres for managerial positions in the economy, trade unions, and political institutions. Established in large industrial enterprises and drawing on the staff of institutions of higher learning, these universities had two departments, socioeconomic and technical, with a two- and three- year program of study respectively. Classes were held four times a week in four-hour sessions. Workers' universities were closed in 1931 with the development of new adult education programs. (See also People's universities; Workers' faculties.)

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]