At this time, it was in charge of all the VUZy, institutes of higher education (or universities), and SSUZy, technical schools for training semi-professional personnel, like nurses, para-medics, teachers, and librarians.
[1] Many of the changes made to the Ministry of Higher Education (or MinVUZ as it was abbreviated after June 1959) had to do with the administration of these institutes for training semi-professionals.
A more successful venture into strengthening republican interests started in 1959 when ministerial offices (of MinVUZ) were set up in the RSFSR, Ukraine and Belarus.
[4] Structural changes were much more thorough during Brezhnev's leadership, who showed “a lively interest in the state machinery.”[2] A decree was promulgated on 3 September 1966 that empowered MinVUZ to take greater control of the VUZy that it had administered jointly with the other ministries.
The decree would also make these VUZy centres for ‘elaborating and generalising materials on teaching methods, compiling textbooks and training or retraining research and teaching staff.’[2] The inspection of all VUZy and SSUZy now came under the purview of MinVUZ, which was also given the power to dismiss the heads of individual institutions as well as nominate potential candidates.