PART lssues and Perspectives of Elementaryand Secondary Education
Chapter 3. Elementary and Secondary Education in Selected Countries
1. Overview
Under the drastically changing socio-economic environment surrounding
children, many countries or the world are promoting the reform of elementary
and secondary education with unique approaches in response to their respective
situations. For example, in contrast to the efforts of our country to make education,
particularly secondary education, diversified and flexible, the United States,
the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany are promoting reforms
to strengthen the commonality and standardization of educational content and
method as a counter-measure to deal with the declining academic achievement.
On the other hand, France and the soviet Union, like our country, are apparently
promoting reform toward diversification and flexibility. The United States and
France are suffering tram even higher rate of high school dropouts than that
in our country, and are keenly in search of measures to retain them by, for example,
developing more attractive curriculum. In the United states, drug abuse and teen-age
pregnancies among students are becoming a serious problem, which are main causes
of high school dropout. Therefore, schools are required to provide students with
civic education. Many countries are endeavoring to improve the quality of teachers
as well. In addition to the more rigorous qualification of teachers and the strenghtening
of in-service training of teachers, particularly the United States, France and
the Soviet Union are trying to improve teachers' salaries, which. in these countries,
have been lower than the salary standard of average people.