CHAPTER . AIMS AND CONTENTS OF EDUCATION AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
1. Educational Patterns and Their New Trend
(1) Educational Goals
a. Extension of the School Years of Compulsory Education
In almost all countries it is planned to extend compulsory education
one or two years to raise the national educational standard and to improve the
status of the nation. In the United Kingdom, the number of compulsory education
was extended from 9 to 10 years under the Education Act of 1944,and further in
this Act and in the Crowther Report it is proposed that compulsory education
be extended one more year in the future. France now has the 10 years of compulsory
education, extended from 8 years by the ordinance, "prolongation de la scolarite
obligatoire" in 1959. The 1959 Educational Reform Plan of West Germany provided
for extending the existing period of compulsory education, 8 or 9 years, to 9
years uniformly, and later to 10 years. In the U.S.S.R., the period of compulsory
education, then 10 years in urban areas and 7 years in others, was changed under
the 1959 Khrushchev Educational Reform to 8 years uniformly, and it is also planned
over a 10-year period to provide 3 years of secondary education to all children
of school age.
The Karachi Plan, which was worked out by the Asian countries
interested, proposes that such countries will provide a minimum of seven years
of compulsory education within a period of 20 years. Signatory nations are now
actively taking steps to achieve this goal.