A very young Yuri Gagarin at Lyubertsy trade school, USSR, learning foundry work, 1951 -- Daily LIFT #570
From the Soviet press, 1961:
"At the Lyubertsy school he received both a general secondary and trade education and
in 1951 graduated with honors and a qualification certificate as foundryman. He went onto an industrial technicum in Saratov, a city on the Volga, where for four years he studied foundry technology, graduating with honors in 1955.
While at the technicum, he joined the Saratov Flying Club—this was in 1954. Thereafter, that was where he spent the major portion of his free time, three evenings a week, until he mastered the theory and practice of flight."
Gagarin would then go on to be the first human in space. A testament to the Soviet system that was about freedom of action for the working class.