Dalton-Plan in the Context of Reforms of the Training Process in Soviet Higher Education in 1920-1930s

Under the conditions of reconstruction of the whole Russian economy, the essence, methods and the pace of education was drastically changed and the system of higher education, in particular, was radically modernized. The period in question was marked by extraordinary attention paid to higher education by party and state authorities. At that time the Dalton plan organizational system became widespread all over the world. This system, based on the principle of individual training, took its name after Dalton, Massachusetts where it was originally implemented by Parkhurst. In the USSR this training method was often called as brigade-laboratorial method or active-laboratorial. Precisely, the analytical comparison of this period with current state of affairs allows tospot both positive and negative experience of the higher education in the Soviet period, to historically reflect not only the ongoing processes but the ones which took place in the past.