In early March, 2018, IICE Professor XIAO Su attended the ‘Sino-Japan Academic Exchange on Education in the Soviet Union’ at University of Tsukuba in Tokyo. Around 20 professors and scholars of the field from University of Tsukuba, Waseda University, Hitotsubashi University, Gifu University, Seinan Gakuin University and Japanese National Education Institute joined the exchange. Professor XIAO delivered two speeches entitled ‘China’s Existing and Future Research in Soviet Union’s Education’ and ‘Publicity and Influence of Educational Thoughts of Sukhomlinskii in China’ in the languages of Chinese and Russian respectively.

Each speech lasted around two hours in chronological order with numerous graphs, figures and real-world scene pictures presented. Prof. XIAO elaborated upon how China’s comparative education contributes to the study of Soviet Union’s education, and how much China’s basic education is influenced by Sukhomlinskii’s thoughts on education.

The audiences were mostly members of Japan’s Russian Education Research Association. Almost every member of the association had a good command of Russian and once conducted field studies in Russia. According to Prof. Iwasaki Masago from Waseda University, the association was founded in 1970s and held academic exchanges in the working universities of its different members at regular intervals. Every three year the association would apply for project grants from Japanese Ministry of Education for the research into Russia’s education. Currently, the projects of the theme include ‘Research on the Teaching System of Gifted Children in Russia’, ‘Research on Russian Secondary Professional Education System’, ‘Study on the Training System of Teacher Training and Skills in Russia and CIS Countries’, and so forth.

In Japan, as the majority of researchers in the field of Soviet Union’s education have retired or are retiring soon, the focuses on Soviet Union’s education are becoming fewer and fewer, and thus Japanese colleagues expressed some concerns as to their successors in the field. Prof. Minerai Akiko called for further cooperation between Japan and China in the research into Russian and Soviet Union’s education.