A comprehensive review of the public education system in Soviet Azerbaijan, this book traces the system's development since its establishment in 1920; it examines the system's context, goals, and organization, and analyzes its achievements and their economic effects. Two sections (four chapters each) cover the periods before and since the mid-1960's. The chapters' topics are as follows: (1) education before 1920, the school system's initial goals and activities, and the anti-illiteracy campaign through 1959; (2) the development of universal 8-year schooling through the forties, fifties, and early sixties, including efforts to make education more practical and improve teacher training; (3) creating a "new intelligentsia" to further revolutionary goals, while preserving Azerbaijanian culture; (4) the development and "Azerbaijanization" of programs to train specialists; (5) the establishment of 10-year compulsory education in the late 1960's, attendant problems, and new policy approaches and methods; (6) the influence of scientific and technological progress in training of specialists and skilled workers; (7) the relationship of higher education to economic and technological progress, and planning methods designed to strengthen that relationship; and (8) the international significance of Azerbaijan's accomplishment. Tables of demographic, economic, and educational data are appended. (MCG)