Soviet educator and public education official responsible for numerous works dealing with pedagogical theory.

Educated in the natural sciences division of the department of physics and mathematics at Moscow University, Kairov later taught there, at the Moscow Timiryanzev Agricultural Academy, and at the Lenin Pedagogical Institute. He also served as Russian Soviet minister of education (1949–56), as a member of the Supreme Soviet, and as vice president and president of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (1946–67). In 1957 he headed the Soviet delegation to the Third International Conference on Banning Atomic and Hydrogen Weapons, in Tokyo. Kairov's best-known work is Pedagogika (1956).