This article traces the development and the topical problems of the theory of syllabi in pedagogy in the USSR and the GDR.
In Soviet pedagogy, it is pointed out, questions of the theory of syllabi have been and are still being solved within the framework of didactics, especially in connection with questions concerning the content of education and its selection. Attention is paid t9 the development of the problems involved and to the most significant contributions to their solution by a number of Soviet specialists in didactics (especially M. N. Skatkin, N. N. Longvinov, authors of pedagogy textbooks, T. A. Ilyinova and others). What is appraised as a contribution to the solution of the above-mentioned problems is the creation of methodological bases of didactics in the seventies, elaboration of the theory of the content of education (V. V. Krayevskij and I. Ja. Lerner), the conception according to which basic and functional syllabi are drawn up (V. V. Monakhov) and some other non-traditional solutions to the given questions (Ju. K. Babanskij, N. A. Loshkaryova and others).
In pedagogy of the German Democratic Republic the questions dealt with in this article are those of syllabi as a component of broadly understood theory of pedagogical planning (Lehrplantheorie). This theory (O. Mader) proceeding from the conception of education based on the relationship of personality structure and the laws governing the educational process, works by means of the method of gradual concretization. The author concludes the article by pointing out the common signs and trends that are essential for the further development of the problems in question.