in the USSR, a type of boarding school established in 1964 for the upbringing and rehabilitation of minors aged 11 to 14 who maliciously and systematically violate rules of social behavior or commit socially dangerous acts before reaching the age of criminal responsibility. Assignment to special schools, carried out on the decision of commissions on juvenile affairs, is the most serious measure applied to adolescents who require special upbringing and a strict educational regime. Parents are charged for part of the pupils’ support.

Special schools are operated under the authority of educational agencies. The instruction combines classwork with socially useful labor that takes age and physical development into account; the general-education studies follow the standard curricula.

Pupils may be kept in special schools until the age of 14 or 15. If by that time a pupil is not considered to have reformed, he is transferred to a special vocational-technical school.