(CZ) K otázce technického vzdělání na gymnasiu
(EN) On the Question of Technical Education at Senior Secondary School

The new conception of the general secondary education at the gymnasium) in the Czech Socialist Republic ought to be in keeping not only with the present requirements of socialist society, but also with future ones. If we proceed from the fact that in the period of the incipient Scientific and Technological Revolution man is surrounded not only by society and nature, but also by technology, the general secondary education should also correspond to these three areas and be represented by subjects from the field of social sciences, natural sciences and mathematics, and by subjects of a technological and economic character. The modernization of gymnasium education should proceed from the double purpose of the gymnasium, namely to prepare its pupils for study at university and for life. We must take into account the fact that only one out of three gymnasium leavers successfully completes university studies, while the remaining two enter practical occupations immediately after leaving school or after taking a vocational course or after unfinished university studies, and for them the G. C. E. is the highest educational qualification they have attained. The present-day gymnasium not only does it not give its pupils sufficiently legally acknowledged professional qualification for work in suitable occupations where extensive general polytechnical education with elements of vocational education is required, but because of its arts bias it does not arouse sufficient interest in studying technical subjects at university level. The proposed introduction of a compulsory general technical subject into experimental gymnasium with two periods a week in the 1st and 2nd year and the introduction of specialized subjects of a technological and economic character in the 3rd and 4th year supplemented by a wide selection of optional practical vocational subjects should provide a basis for a better preparation for university studies as well as for the acquisition of certain skills by gymnasium leavers necessary for practical occupations, and the qualifications thus acquitted should be codified in a new qualification catalogue involving technological and economic skills.