Structural reform in secondary school education-tendencies and strategies

Abstract

Since the virtual abolition of the double-track system, secondary school education worldwide has carried a double task: to continue to provide general education for qualified students after they finish elementary schooling and to train mid-level professional personnel and technically skilled workers. These will continue to be the tasks of secondary school education until the realization of universalization of higher education. Secondary school education is the intermediate link in the whole school system. The state of secondary school education influences the quality of higher education and affects the development of the national economy and the co-ordination of social life. Therefore, we should pay special attention to the reform of secondary school education in order to make it suitable to the rapid development of scientific technology and the national economy and to the changes in social life. The reform of secondary school education concerns many areas, but the key point is to set up a proper structure. How, then, can the structure of secondary school education be made effective? First, let us look at the present state of structural reform in secondary school education in various countries. In Bulgaria, vocational education takes precedence in the various schools at the secondary level. After finishing a compulsory eightyear education, 90 percent of the students go on studying in one of the following three types of secondary schools: 48.3 percent in secondary vocational-technical school (three years); 27.3 percent in general comprehensive technical school, that is, general high school (four years); 16.1 percent in secondary vocational school (four years). Thus the students in secondary technical schools and secondary vocational schools represent 64.4 percent of all the students in secondary schools. In Romania, measures were taken in 1977 to reform the structure of secondary school education. Vocational-technical education in the high school was strengthened and the high school program was divided into many vocational courses including industry, agriculture, law, administration, mathematics, teacher training, history, medicine, art, and language. Besides learning a basic knowledge of culture and science according to a study plan, students are now required to master some skills in a profession. Research has shown the variation in some developed countries in the proportion of students in vocational schools to those in general middle schools: in the United States of America, the ratio is 4:6; in Japan, 4:6; in the Federal Republic of Germany, 6:4; in Italy, 3:1; and in the USSR, 4:6 (Li, L., 1984).