















































International Journal of Social and Educational Innovation (IJSEIro) 

Volume 10/ Issue 19/ 2023 

 

 

89 

 

 

 

THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF E. D. DNEPROV  

AT THE LEVEL OF THE EDUCATIONAL POLICY 

 

Aura HAPENCIUC 

“Ştefan cel Mare” University of Suceava, Romania 

aurahapenciuc@yahoo.com 

 

 

Abstract 

The paper analyzes the educational policies in Russia in the postmodern 

(contemporary) period, a historical context in which the curriculum paradigm is asserted.The 

pedagogue with a remarkable contribution is E. D. Dneprov, an academician of the Russian 

Academy of Education and a Minister of Education.In the analysis of his books, we followed 

the following coordinates: the axiomatic foundations/the basic concepts that define the 

education policy, the specific object of study of the education policy (as a field of pedagogical 

sciences), its specific normativity and its specific research methodology.The historical 

research methodology was used to highlight the evolution of the field conceptually and 

institutionally, in a synchronic and a diachronic perspective.The table at the end constitutes a 

synthesis of the work, demonstrating the epistemological maturity of the analyzed texts, 

epistemically essentialized by capitalizing on the fundamental concepts. 

 

Keywords: educational policies, reform, counter-reform, innovation, strategy. 

 

1. Introduction 

E. D. Dneprov, an academician of the Russian Academy of Education, the last 

minister of education in the USSR and the first minister of education in the Russian 

Federation in the period 1990-1992, is the theoretician of the education reform through the 

following books: The current school reform in Russia (1998); Education and politics. The 

recent history of the Russian educational policy. Volume 1 (2006); Russian education in the 

19th and early 20th centuries 2 volumes – Volume I, The political history of the Russian 

education, Volume II, The formation and development of the Russian education system 



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(2011). As it was developed in a period full of enthusiasm, the perestroika period, and the 

transition to another type of society, the fourth reform, initiated and theorized by E. D. 

Dneprov, deserves a special analysis, due to its perfect articulation, at the level of a global 

and open training model. 

 

2. Content development 

In the book The Fourth Reform in Russia (1994), the historical analysis undertaken 

allows advancing three conclusions about the education reforms: 1. They take place in 

periods of social development, after economic and political reforms;2. They are durable if 

they have the ability to: a) "accumulate an ideational potential, social-pedagogical and 

technological achievements"; b) to make deep changes in the structure of the education 

system; c) "to self-develop and to radicalize the transformations started"; d) to contribute to 

the increase of the effective "degree of security and social participation and preparation for 

action"; 3. They cannot avoid the counter-reforms politically generated by factors that "win 

the fight against school", which is a problem for specialists in sociology and the education 

policy (Днепров Э.Д, 1994, 30,31).  

The moments of regression occur even after the fourth education reform, in the second half of 

the 1990s (Днепров Э.Д, 2001, 259): a) the tendency of stagnation generated by a multitude 

of factors; b) "political adventures", which led to the discrediting of decision-makers; c) the 

inability of the educational policy to address the key issues and the pseudo-problem of the 

generalization of 12-year education was highlighted; d) the moving away from the major 

interests of the educational community; e) the lack of strategic thinking and systemic vision 

(Днепров Э.Д, 2001, 259). 

The analysis of the reform is carried out according to: 1) The triad of the final goals: 

a) the creation of the conditions for the personality development;b) the launching of the 

development and self-development mechanisms of the education system;c) transforming 

education into an effective factor for the development of the society;2) Ten basic principles 

outlined in 1987, substantiated in December 1988, at the Union Education Congress, which 

can be ordered at the level of system reconstruction and improvement of the education 

process. 

I) The principles aimed at the reconstruction of the education system: 1) The 

democratization of the education by: a) the liquidation of the state monopoly on education; b) 

the decentralization of the management; c) the participation of the local authorities in the 



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management of education; d) the autonomy of the educational institutions; e) the right of 

teachers to be creative; f) the right of the pupils to choose the school and the educational 

profile;2) The pluralism of the education takes into account: the variable and alternative 

specificity of the education, the diversity of the types of schools, of forms and channels of 

education (Днепров Э.Д, 2001, 44);3) The popular and national characteristics of the 

education ensures the spiritual health of the school, as a culture factor, with historical 

arguments (in the pedagogy of K.D. Uşinski); 4) The open nature of education implies: a) the 

reporting on global issues;b) the engaging in dialogue with other cultures;c) the valorization 

of the human values before those of class and group;d) overcoming the ideological limits of 

education;5. The regional character of education implies the freedom granted to each region 

to choose its own educational strategy, "a first step towards the educational federalism." 

(Днепров Э.Д, 2001, 46)   

II) The principles aimed at improving the educational process: 1. The humanizing of 

the education by focusing on the pupil's activity, approached organically, unitarily, 

psychologically and socially oriented, towards the self-training and the self-development;2. 

The humanistic character of training achieved by overcoming the "division of the culture and 

education into humanistic and technical";3. The differentiated training by capitalizing on the 

child's right to choose his training path in relation to his own resources;4. The active nature of 

the training, through the historical leap from the paradigm of the reproductive education to 

the innovative education, based upon development, which assumes the "innate human desire 

for activity".5. The permanent specificity of the training / self-training, through the 

"multidimensional movement of the personality, in the educational space", in relation to all 

the pedagogical values, engaged culturally, economically, civically. (Днепров Э.Д, 2001, 51)   

The success of the education reform implies the fulfillment of seven conditions 

(Днепров Э.Д, 1994): a) supporting innovative changes, at the economic, political, cultural 

and media level; b) ensuring a systemic character; c) substantiating efforts to increase the 

development space of education in an open context; d) employing the capacity of the school 

organization to self-regulate; e) orientation towards an innovative process; f) supporting the 

pedagogical and social needs of the population on a social scale, not only at the level of the 

“top individuals”; f) the staging of the reform process in the perspective of innovative 

change, at the level of goals, structure and content. 

The "fourth reform"underwent five stages: 1) The crisis, which imposes the design of 

the reform (mid-1985 – May 1987); 2) The preparation of the reform concept and its 



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programs (June 1987-July 1988); 3) Adoption of the reform (August-December 1988); 4) The 

stagnation of the reform (January 1989-July 1990); 5) The achievement of the reform "in a 

new political configuration" (after August 1990). 

The preparation of the reform is marked by a corpus of innovative ideas, promoted in 

the Teacher's newspaper, led by V. F. Mateev, the ideologue of the school restructuring. The 

creative pedagogy club "Evrika" was created around him, which: a) initiated the Teachers' 

Congress;b) promoted the Pedagogy of Cooperation Manifesto (The Teacher's Newspaper, 

October 18, 1986) which advocates the teaching without coercion.The project is based on: a) 

objectives aimed at the self-improvement; b) knowledge elaborated in "big blocks", from a 

constructivist perspective, which capitalizes on the pupils' resources in the zone of the 

proximal development; c) the creative education method; d) the incentive evaluation; e) the 

creative self-management; f) the generalized cooperation (between the school and all 

community factors, among teachers in formal and non-formal contexts; among the educated 

and so on). 

The provisional scientific team, established by political decision (June 1, 1988), has 

substantiatedthe concept of general secondary education, published in the Teacher's 

Newspaper of August 23, 1988, improved in December 1988, at the Education Congress. It 

promotes a model of democratic pedagogy, based on the unity between the school and the 

community. This model "defines the pedagogy of cooperation. "The ideas were incorporated 

into legal documents, which laid the foundations for the Law of the Russian Federation on 

Education, adopted in 1992. 

The new education law is built on the basis of three priority principles: 1) the 

humanistic character of education; 2) the priority given to general human values, the life and 

health of people; 3) the free personality development. The objectives are the following: a) the 

qualitative renewal of the content of education, the training standards and the technologies; 

b) supporting the development of national and regional education systems; c) the continuous 

training; d) the administrative decentralization; e) expanding the society's participation in the 

education management; f) attracting additional sources of funding for education; g) the 

development of innovation in education at all levels; i) the social support of the teaching 

staff.The reforming program involved: a) the achievement of the new education plan, 

alternative programs and textbooks; b) the development of the national standards necessary 

for system and process evaluation; c) the training of teaching staff in an innovative spirit. 



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Thereform process is represented iconically in the form of a star. The top peak 

concentrates the fundamental orientations and values of education, which are the basis of the 

contents of education –ÎСÎ. On the side dimensions the following actions are written down: a) 

the evaluation of the quality of education –ECÎ; b) the development of the innovative 

educational processes, DPEI. At the bottom there is the complex action of: a) the training of 

pedagogues for teachers from all disciplines and levels of education, PP; b) the training of 

school managers from all levels of the education system, PM. (Днепров Э.Д, 2001, 135)   

 

 

ÎСÎ 

 

 

ECÎ                                         jj                     DPEI      

 

 

 

PP                    PM 

 

 

1) ÎCÎ – the guidelines and fundamental values / the innovative renewals of the educational 

content; 

2) ECÎ – the action to evaluate the quality of the education; 

3) DPEI – the action for the development of the innovative educational processes; 

3) PP – the complex training action of pedagogues / teachers; 

4) PM – the complex training action of the school managers. 

 

The strategic documents of the reform include: the federal laws – About Education 

and About the professional higher and the post-graduate education; The national doctrine of 

education in the Russian Federation until 2025; The main directions of the long-term social 

and economic policy of the Government of the Russian Federation; The concept of 

modernization of the education in Russia until 2010 ;The concept of social and economic 

development of the Russian Federation in the long term (until 2020); Normative and 

legislative documents of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. 



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On December 29, 2001, the Government of the Russian Federation approved the 

Concept of Modernization of Education in Russia by 2010. It was considered that "Russian 

education has faced modernization rather than reform." (Днепров Э.Д, 1994, 263) "The basic 

link is the secondary school", which aims at: "the development of the pupils' personality and 

their cognitive and creative abilities." 

The national doctrine of the education in the Russian Federation until 2025, approved 

by the Federal Law, establishes the priorities of the public education. The strategic objectives 

aim to involve the education in the development of the Russian society for: a) "overcoming 

the social, economic and spiritual crisis"; b) ensuring "the quality of the people's lives and the 

national security"; c) "restoring the status of Russia in the world community as a great power 

in the fields of education, culture, science, technology and economy"; d) "creating the basis 

for the sustainable social, economic and spiritual development of Russia". 

At the end of the 90s, the education reform registered a series of dysfunctions 

generated by the tendency to subordinate education to a certain economic radicalism. In the 

period 2000-2004, education modernization programs occurred, supported at the education 

policy level, necessary to carry the reform to the end, in accordance with the cultural, 

economic, political and community development requirements of the society. 

The analysis of the education reform, undertaken in the past 20 years, requires 

reporting on three pedagogical criteria, regarding the capacity for innovative change achieved 

at the level of: 1. Purposes (ideal, general goals; objectives); 2. Organizational structure of 

the education system; 3. Curricular content of the educational process (curriculum, programs 

and school manuals). (Cristea Sorin, 1994, 317)  

The ideal of the education is defined in accordance with the national priorities, in 

accordance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the Law of the Russian 

Federation on Education. Its construction involved historical research. During the Middle 

Ages, the ideal of the education was that of forming a religious man. In the 18th Century, 

when the State rises above the church, the ideal of the education is that of a citizen useful to 

the Russian Empire, the State and the Motherland. The Soviet era proposed as the ideal of 

education the multilaterally developed personality, involved in achieving the progress of 

society. In the 1990s, the ideal of a free personality was formulated, delimited by the narrow 

national traditions and the dogmatic commitment subordinated to an authoritarian political 

regime. 



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The ideal of the education in the current era represents "the citizen of Russia formed 

at a moral, creative, competent level, identified with the destiny of the Motherland, with the 

future of the country, with his roots in the spiritual and cultural traditions of the multinational 

people of the Russian Federation. "The projective force of this ideal is reflected at the level of 

the strategic goals of the education system and the general and specific objectives of the 

education process. 

The organizational structure of the education system includes: the preschool 

education, the primary education, the basic education, the (full)secondary education, the 

initial professional education, the secondary professional education, the higher professional 

education (university diploma, specialty and postgraduate training programs) and the 

postgraduate education. A decisive role belongs to the general education (6-18 years old), 

which includes three stages, corresponding to the three levels of education programs: the 

primary, the basic the (full)secondary education program. 

The content of the training is designed in relation to the ideal of the education, the 

strategic goals and the general and specific objectives of the educational process. The basic 

federal education plan includes the state standards for the general education, designed as 

general objectives, according to which the foundations necessary for the development of 

regional (national and regional) plans and of the educational institutions are established. In 

this perspective, the federal basic curriculum proposes an annual number of classes that can 

be redistributed by schooling institutions through modular organization. 

This allows for the development of a differentiated and variable curriculum, based on 

a special pedagogical relationship between the federal component (75% of the total time) –

the regional component (not less than 10%) –of the educational institution (not less than 

10%). The concept of modernization of the Russian education until 2010 proposed 

increasing the number of training hours for the economic and social subjects, foreign 

languages and computer science. 

The general (full)secondary education is the final stage of the general education, 

designed to provide functional literacy and social adaptation, necessary in the process of the 

social and civic self-determination of pupils. It aims at the continuity between the general 

education and the professional education. The set of basic and specialized subjects form the 

federal component of the basic curriculum. 

The optional subjects fulfill two main functions: a) deepening the contents of some of 

the basic subjects; b) satisfying the cognitive and social-emotional interests of pupils in 



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various areas of the human activity. Some integrated subjects (Social Studies or Natural 

Sciences) are studied depending on the chosen specialty. 

The law of the Russian Federation on Education defines the content of the 

education as one of the factors of economic and social progress of the society.It is value 

oriented through four strategic goals: 1) "Ensuring the foundations of the personality 

formation;2) Creating conditions for its achievement; 3) The global development of the 

society; 4) The consolidation and improvement of the rule of law". The general objective 

aims to ensure "an adequate level of general and professional culture of the society". 

The derived specific objectives aim at: a) the formation of a level of knowledge 

corresponding to that of the educational programs and the current level of knowledge; b) the 

integration of the individual into the national and universal culture; c) the formation of a 

citizen integrated in the contemporary society and oriented towards the improvement of the 

society; d) the formation of the spiritual and moral personality; e) the training and 

development of society's human resources" (The law of the Russian Federation of 10.07.1992 

No. 3266-1, ed. On 28.02.2012, p.12, On education). 

 

3. Conclusions and suggestions 

The conclusion of our historical study reiterates the idea of the existence of the four 

reformsof the education in Russia, which were intensified in the modern and postmodern 

(contemporary) era.The trends of the recent years are, in fact, an advanced modernization, 

which continued with the fourth reform, which tried to respond to the value requirements 

imposed by the democratization, the globalization and the computerization of the society.At 

the level of the pedagogy, it involves capitalizing on the higher normative requirements of the 

curriculum paradigm, provided in the postmodern (contemporary) historical era, from the 

second half of the 20th century to this day. 

Culturally, but also ideologically, Russia has its paradoxes. On the one hand, it has an 

enormous capacity to resist, confirming its status as a great intellectual power, "thanks to the 

autonomous archipelagos of scientific invention, protected by the regime, in the academic 

towns, closed citadels of scientists." (Nivat Georges, 1994, 132) On the other hand, the 

Russian historiographical tradition assimilates the reform with a cyclical threat from the 

West, directed against its own cultural values. This is an idea taken up in the 1990s by 

Solzhenitsyn, who believed that such a reform is dramatically marked by a true "catastrophic 

turn", in the conditions of the non-respect of the specific community (national) culture. 



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The way out of this historically accumulated ideological tension can be achieved by 

designing an educationreform in accordance with the global values of the information 

society, taken over and developed specifically in the context of an exceptional cultural model 

in which theinternal contents are predominant in relation to theexternal forms. 

The following table summarizes the work and demonstrates the epistemological 

maturity of the texts under analysis. 

 

The evolution of the pedagogy in Russia in the postmodern (contemporary) 

 era at the level of education policy 

 

Axiomatic foundations / Basic 

concepts that define: 

REPRESENTATIVE TEACHER 

E. D. Dneprov, The Fourth Reform in Russia, 

1994;The current school reform in Russia, 1998; The 

recent history of the Russian educational policy, 2006 

1. The education policy Theoretical and normative pedagogical science, with 

an applicative character at the level of the social 

system and the educational system and process 

2. The specific study object of the 

education policy (as a field of 

pedagogical sciences) 

Designing and implementing education reforms in 

socially and historically determined pedagogical 

contexts 

3. The normativity specific to the 

education policy (as a field of 

pedagogical sciences) 

- The federal law on Education, built on the basis of 

the "Strategic Documents of the Reform" which 

establish the strategic goals, the general objectives 

and the specific objectives 

- The principles aimed at: a) the reconstruction of the 

education system (democratization, pluralism, 

national, universal, open, regional character: b) the 

improvement of the education process (humanistic, 

differentiated, active, permanent character) 

4. The research methodology 

specific to the education policy (as 

a field of pedagogical sciences) 

a) Fundamental, involved in building: - a model of 

the reform process represented in the shape of a star 

(at the top, the goals and values; the lateral 



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dimensions – the quality assessment and the 

development of innovative processes; at the bottom, 

the training of teachers and school managers); 

- The education law aimed at the reconstruction of the 

education system at the level of goals (ideal, strategic 

goals, objectives), organizational structure, 

curriculum content (plan, programs, textbooks, in 

relation to the proposed goals); 

b) Operational, empirical, experimental, necessary 

for the periodic quantitative and qualitative evaluation 

of the results at the level of the educational process, of 

concrete educational and training activities. 

  

In our approach, we started from outlining the premises of the evolution of pedagogy 

in Russia in the postmodern era. The "ideological thaw", initiated in the 1950s and 1960s, 

favored the development of the pedagogy. The humanist pedagogy, represented by V.A. 

Suhomlinski, the initiator of the movement of the innovative pedagogues, is a relevant 

example in this regard. 

 The academician E. D.  Dneprov, the theoretician of education reform and minister of 

education, is representative for the contributions at the level of the educational policy.He 

designed the fourth education reform in Russia, according to two categories of principles, 

which intended the reconstruction of the education system and the open nature of 

education.The work captures the variety of trends manifested in the pedagogy in Russia in the 

contemporary period as the representative names brought into discussion tried to outline the 

profile of the period, but they were also representative from the perspective of the 

epistemological foundations of pedagogy. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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