Chobotarka agricultural craft school: the unknown history pages of agricultural education (1907-1921)

Abstract

The history of vocational education in Podillia region remains among the little-studied problems of historical science. That is why the authors set the goal of revealing, on the basis of archival documents, the formation and pre-Soviet development of the Chebotar Lower Agricultural Craft School named after M.S. Ivanina (the village of Chebotarka, now the village of Zabolotne), which has not yet found its proper coverage.

The Chebotarka craft school was opened in 1907 as a result of the initiative of the local peasantry, who wanted to provide children with a free education with a vocational focus. The key role in its opening and initial financing belonged to the wealthy peasant Maxim Stepanovich Ivanina. The official opening of the school took place on December 20, 1907. The school was financed by the state, hubernia’s and povit’s zemstvos, and local peasant’s society. The school had three departments: carpentry and turning, metalsmithing and blacksmithing and agriculture. At the same time, the agricultural profile appeared only in 1911 and was of secondary importance, that is, the school was primarily a craft school. The duration of study for pupils was four years. All pupils studied in the same class, and the distribution by profession took place in grades 2-3.

Despite the positive dynamics of its development – the construction of its own building, the rapid replenishment of workshops with equipment and the library with literature, the school also had some disadvantages. Thus, the school was characterized by the transience of teachers and employees and the instability of the student population. If the fact that students leave is easy to explain – family circumstances, academic failure, etc., then the rapid change of teachers is explained by the difficult living conditions in rural areas and the desire of teachers to find a place in towns and cities.

Despite all the difficulties of the First World War and the Ukrainian Revolution, the Soviet-Polish War and post-war devastation, the educational institution managed to survive and today it trains specialists for the economy of the Podillia region.

Funding. The study was prepared based on the results of fundamental research “The Socio-cultural Space of Ukraine in the Second Half of the Nineteenth – First Third of the Twentieth Century: the Peasant-centric Dimension” (state registration number: 0123U101600) with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.