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CHAPTER . AIMS AND CONTENTS OF EDUCATION AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

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.