Questions of the Education of the Working People

Higher education of the largest possible num ber of people is an im portant factor.in speeding up the transition to the communist society, and therefore further education of the working people is becoming one of the basic conditions for the development of the socialist society. In the Czechoslovak educational system the existing forms of further education of the working people for the raising of their general and polytechnical education have given rise to a new type of school — the Secondary School for Working People — which follows up smoothly on the previous compulsory education at Technical Training Centres and A pprentice Schools. T he author of this article analyses the conditions under which working people can, without interrupting employment, acquire full secondaiy education and further deepen their technical qualification or even acquire pre-requisites for obraining a new qualification. Defining the term of „Secondary Schools for Working People“ he outlines the principles to be observed in setting down the content, which hás its own specific differences compared with the other schools of the 2 ^^ cyd. Special attention is given to methods of work, because, when working w ith adults, new methods m ust be chosen, different from those currently used at ordinary schools. It is pointed out how the teachers teaching at these schools must see that the cognitional process of their pupils is perfectly developed and how they make use of the practical knowledge of the pupils from production for deducing general laws. Then the author dcjals with encouraging'and using the pupils' activity for independent work of their own and vice versa for their applying in production the knowledge they have acquired. Simultaneously the basic requirem ents are set fortlji for the teaching plan of the Secondary Schools for Working People, especially the requirement for differentiated education, and this plan is stated (Concretely for each of the proposed branches.