(CZ) Společenská determinácia výchovy a vzdelávania
(EN) Social determination of education

The article analyses the social conditions determining education with regard to the active role played by man in shaping himself and in developing social relationships. Education may contribute to a positive orientation of the community’s member, of his ideas, attitudes and actions. Thereby it shares in the formation of individual and social consciousness. Social consciousness is not just the sum total of the individual consciousneess of individual persons, but it represents a new quality, a system which, though being conditioned by the community’s life, is nevertheless relatively independent and influences each member of the community.
In the next part of the article the author analyses the influence of social environment on education, especially as regards the way education is socially conditioned. He believes that a scientific analysis of man’s social environment, of the conditions exerting an influence on the formation of this personality, on his activities and mental horizon, enables us to find out the real level and the characteristic features of the social consciousness of different social groups, and to derive from such knowledge adequate stimuli for the further development of the educational system. The article gives an outline of parallels to the implementation of the document entitled “Further Development of the Czechoslovak Educational System”.
Prognoses in the field of education are based on facts and information resulting from the development of productive forces and social relations. Particular significance is attached to a scientific analysis of the world of labour. It is, above all, a Socialist society that has the prerequisites for a creative use, in the field of education, of the positive stimuli resulting from the rapid development of science and technology.
Education of man for life and work in a developed Socialist society under the conditions of the Scientific and Technological Revolution will have a comprehensive character and will reflect the need for harnony between the creation of knowledge, skills and habits, the formation of opinions and attitudes, and man’s concrete activities. One cannot ignore the real facts and therefore, in the continual development of education, it is necessary to proceed via near, immediate tasks towards prospective targets set on the basis of long-term prognoses.
The application of the above-mentioned theoretical starting points will be analysed by confronting social requirements with the structure, the quantitative and qualitative trends of the development of the educational system, while special attention deserves to be paid to investigating nationwide generally accepted criteria of the objectives, contents and basic quantitative and qualitative indices of skilled workers’ training and to analysing social conditions determining the position, profile and activities of the teacher.
A component of he elaboration of theoretical questions concerning the further construction of a Socialist society is also a scientific analysis and prognosis of the further development of the educational system.