Obsah polytechnickej výchovy

The author analyses some questions concerning the content of general educational polytechnical schools, and their polytechnical content in particular. He points out that the content of these schools must be madp up in close connection with the needs of socialist construction, in accordance with the achievements of modern science and technique; the content and the extent of the subject-matter must be in keeping with the stage of development of the pupils. Further he mentions the views of leading Soviet educationalists on the question of the content of the polytechnical side of education. He follows their endeavour to define the general principles of modern production and the necessary work habits and to incorporate them organically into the subject-matter of the general educational school, to include the rudiments of engineering, power, mechanical, chemical, biological and nuclear technology as well as the basic principles of transport and organisation of production in the subject-matter of general educational polytechnical schools.
On the basis of present-day state of theory and practice of polytechnical education, the author points out that the principal media for an all-round development of personality of the pupil at general educational polytechnical schools are: theoretical instruction and participation of pupils in practical productive work. Consequently theoretical preparation in technical subjects and direct participation in productive work are of primary iniportance for the polytechnical education of the pupils. After learning the most general laws governing production in natural science and mathematics, the pupils must be prepared for productive work by means of a system of optional subjects of a technical, technological, economic or practical character. Pupils in the highest forms of secondary schools take part in productive work in the local industrial and agricultural undertijkings suitable for this purpose. In these undertakings each pupil should choose the l^ind of work according to his or her interests and talent. Then the pupils choose from the system of optional subjects of a polytechnical character the scientific subject corresponding to the kind of productive work they have chosen. The highest forms of general educational polytechnical schools would thus assume the character of classes differentiated into two or three branches of production.