Education Systems in Times of Multiple Crises: The Case of PostSocialist Transformations

The transformation of postsocialist education is perhaps one of the most interesting developments in the history of comparative education. The collapse of the socialist system led to a series of crises: Ideological crisis – the collapse of the socialist idea of education, partially replaced by the ideology of neoliberalism. Social crisis – dismantling of the socialist welfare system and attempts to replace it by different Western models of social welfare. Economic crisis – transition from planned to market economy which led to deterioration of educational infrastructure. Cultural crisis – socialist culture was replaced by different modifications of promoting national and/or regional cultures. Structural crisis – countries with practically identical educational structures chose different ways of restructuring education. After the failure of the previous system Western researchers assumed that the common model of transition will be very straightforward – postsocialist countries should catch up with the more “modern” Western educational models. However, the transition did not follow the prescribed path and postsocialist countries have chosen different trajectories of educational development.