Secondary Education

Secondary education has increasingly become a central policy concern of developing countries, particularly among those that have made rapid progress in universalizing primary education and among those in which the demographic trend has shifted in favor of adolescents. The majority of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, East Asia, and the Middle East, as well as some African countries, are grappling with the questions of how to provide skills and knowledge that enable adolescents to move to tertiary education and how to ensure a smooth transition to work for students whose education will end with secondary schooling.

Secondary education also addresses problems unique in human development. Without requisite education to guide their development, not only would young people be ill prepared for tertiary education or for the workplace, but they would also be susceptible to juvenile delinquency and teen pregnancy, thereby exacting a high social cost. Hence the challenge for secondary education is enormous. It represents an unfinished agenda that all countries will face as they develop.

Secondary Education in Europe and the United States

In Europe, higher education, including secondary education, began with training in religion and philosophy. Its purpose was to prepare leaders–especially religious leaders–and its curriculum reflected this purpose. As time passed, general topics for more applied professions were added as part of secondary and higher education curricula, and the curriculum was broadened accordingly. As these general topics were gradually added to the curriculum, they remained philosophical or theoretical in orientation. They were not studied as systems of empirical data, and proofs and validation of knowledge were theoretical rather than experimental.

The earliest secondary schools were based on Renaissance models, with the role of Latin and Greek being paramount. In 1599 the Jesuits implemented the first clear and complete specification of subjects and content as part of the Counterreformation. This curriculum was called the Ration Studiorum (plan of studies), and it was initially implemented at the University of Salamanca in Spain. These early European secondary schools were almost exclusively for males, focusing on intellectual training in its narrow sense and preparation for leadership roles in all sectors of social and economic life.

The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and the Industrial Revolution of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries brought a new emphasis on scientific and technology studies and on empirical studies in general. Moreover, formal government involvement in secondary education grew, with concomitant involvement in curriculum. The first public high school in the United States was established in Boston in 1821.

From the nineteenth century to World War II, the curriculum at the secondary level began to encompass more subjects and became more specific, detailing the content to be covered and the time allotted for doing so. During this period, emphasis on philosophy, divinity, classical languages, and ancient history began to wane and was replaced with modern languages and literature, modern history, and scientific and technological subjects. At this time, most governments decided to educate a broader segment of their secondary-school-age population and included females for the first time. Secondary education became less elitist and more universal and its curriculum more inclusive, or diverse. Although the curriculum was dominated by the needs of the socially and economically privileged rather than by the needs of the masses, there began, nevertheless, an irreversible process of change that acknowledged a growing diversity of student backgrounds and postsecondary options.

A Broader and More Universal Curriculum

In the two decades before World War II, the influence of John Dewey and the Progressive movement, though targeted at the primary education level, had a major influence on secondary-level education. The progressives helped increase curricular emphasis on the practicality and social usefulness of schooling and on "learning by doing." Moreover, separate lower and junior secondary schools were established to cater to the growing number of students entering the secondary level.

The trend to broaden the curriculum began earliest and went farthest in the United States. In the twentieth century, it was responsible for introducing many new practical and vocational subjects. In the second half of the century, courses in driver education, family living, consumer economics, and mathematics for everyday life appeared for the first time. As students with a greater range of abilities, interests, and motivation entered the secondary level, "streaming" and "homogeneous grouping" became more prevalent. Academic secondary schools became more comprehensive and diversified. Courses and even course sequences in such vocational areas as graphic design, hair care and styling, automotive repair, carpentry and machine shop, and home economics began to appear. The launching of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in 1957 was a powerful impetus behind the increase in the amount of scientific topics taught in the Western secondary curriculum, the rigor with which they were taught, and the care taken in their organization and presentation.

In general, the trend in the post–World War II period has been to divide students into streams, to make a single comprehensive secondary school serve a wider variety of interests and abilities, to provide access to a wide range of higher education through alternative curricula, and to broaden the secondary curriculum to include more subjects. Great Britain is a partial exception to this trend, as students tend to study only three subjects for their A-level examinations.

Secondary Education in Developing Countries

Colonial powers in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries educated only a very small portion of colonized peoples, and they educated this portion only at a basic level. In general, their interest was to produce complacent workers. Little education was necessary for this purpose; indeed, education could be seen as antithetical to it. Colonial policy for those few individuals educated beyond the primary school tended to emphasize the production of middle-level clerical and administrative personnel. Hence, the curriculum stressed correct language, arithmetic and accounting abilities, and an adequate fund of general knowledge–as distinct from scientific, aesthetic, or vocational subjects. Great importance was placed on the authority of the teacher and of the spoken and written word.

The independence of colonial countries in the two decades after World War II brought a near universal recognition of the importance of education at all levels for a greatly increased proportion of local populations. After independence, former colonial countries kept old colonial curriculums for a surprisingly long time–indeed, some have been maintained intact into the early twenty-first century.

Some Problems of Definition

The secondary subsector presents some problems of definition in the sense that it falls between primary and tertiary levels and there is no universal agreement as to where primary ends and tertiary begins. The duration of (or the number of grades covered in) secondary education varies from three years in El Salvador to eight years in such countries as Yugoslavia and Kuwait. Similarly, when secondary education begins is highly variable (ranging from grade five to grade nine). The usual duration, however, is grades seven to twelve.

Most countries (the Latin American and Caribbean region is an exception) divide the secondary level of education into a first or lower segment and a second or higher segment. These may be denoted by different names, with a particularly varied set of names for the lower segment: middle, intermediate, lower secondary, junior high, upper elementary, and so on. In different countries these labels may encompass different grades, student ages, curriculum, and objectives, and may be related to the educational levels above and below them in a variety of ways. The higher or upper secondary level is usually labeled simply in these terms or may be called senior high school in areas influenced by American nomenclature. It is also sometimes referred to as the preuniversity level.

There is a worldwide trend to establish the concept of basic education, which is understood to mean a minimum standard of schooling for everyone in a given society. This is frequently done by adding to the primary grades the first part of the secondary cycle (typically called the lower or junior secondary cycle). The combination of primary and lower secondary grades then becomes "basic education," which is usually administered separately from secondary education.

An additional complexity of the secondary subsector is the wide range of types of educational institutions falling under this heading. Attempts to define types by organization, curricular emphasis, or outcome objectives almost always reveal substantial overlap among categories. Exceptions to any classification, including this one, are plentiful. The most common classification includes three overlapping types: (1) general/academic schools, (2) vocational and technical schools, and (3) diversified or comprehensive schools, which are multipurpose institutions that try to combine under one roof the objectives of an academic course of study and one or more vocational fields.

It is clear that these three broad categories of secondary schools are arranged along a continuum of specialization in their dominant instructional objectives. At one end the schools are single-purpose institutions with an intensely academic curriculum. At the other end they are similarly specialized but with a vocational/technical curriculum. Secondary schools lying in the middle of the continuum are multipurpose institutions combining elements of both ends of the spectrum into their instructional program.

Stated outcomes and long-term social objectives of the different types of secondary schools often overlap. Almost all statements of the goals or objectives of all types of secondary education include items such as preparing students for the world of work and making students smoothly functioning members of society.

Differentiating National Curricula as a Response to Increased Coverage

While a traditional academic curriculum may be appropriate for upper level secondary education in a developing country with a relatively low upper secondary school enrollment ratio (for example, 20%), the path toward very much higher enrollment ratios (in excess of 50%) will require much greater curriculum diversity to meet the differing educational needs of different groups. It may well be that vocational education does not have a significant role here; but if not vocational schooling, then what other forms of secondary schooling (either existing or to be developed) would be appropriate? Indeed, for many lower secondary education completers, nonschooling programs, such as apprenticeship, may be more appropriate than continued secondary schooling at the upper level.

The key ideas in secondary education practice can be divided into three categories: organization and subject content, vocationalization, and control. These categories overlap and several ideas could be placed logically in more than one category. Developing countries and development agency projects have dealt with most of these ideas at one time or another.

Organization and subject content. A single nationally set curriculum consistently delivered is a successful educational procedure at the primary level. Where flexibility and student choice are present there is widespread consensus that this should begin after primary school, although whether or not flexibility should begin in lower secondary, where it exists, is still debated. The decision as to whether a curriculum should prepare specialist or generalist knowledge and skills is often decided on the basis of whether a particular level is seen as preparatory or terminal. The trend appears to be one in which the mandated curriculum of the lower secondary grades, or their equivalent by whatever name, is a linear extrapolation of primary school.

Primary schools are almost always general-purpose institutions with considerable social and political consensus surrounding their mission, which is, simply put, to prepare all children for competent adulthood by giving them basic literacy and numeracy skills and, in many countries, an explicit set of moral values. The situation at the secondary level is vastly more complex. Nevertheless, a growing number of countries, often for political and economic reasons rather than pedagogical, put together in a single, all-purpose school, students from different backgrounds, with different needs, abilities, and interests. The question most often asked by policymakers is: Do the financial economies and the social integration hoped for by this "comprehensive" arrangement outweigh the problems created by attempting to handle such diversity in a single place?

In the majority of poor countries there appears to exist growing recognition that science education is an important element in the national primary and secondary curricula. This is due to both the now commonly recognized relationship between quality research and development in science and technology and stable economic growth, and also the need to begin to prepare students more effectively for future scientific and technological employment. Agriculture, health, nutrition, population control, environmental management, and industrial development are a few of the areas that benefit directly from a wider understanding of science and technology.

Science education is therefore in a position of privilege and peril. It is privileged because decision makers recognize the relationship between good science and economic development. In many developing countries this recognition has resulted in additional support for science education. Moreover, in the majority of poor countries there appears to exist growing recognition that science education is an important element in the national secondary curriculum. "Science for all" is a frequently voiced rallying cry. At the same time, science education is imperiled by: (1) unrealistic expectations for quick results, (2) improper and inadequate teacher training, (3) a lifeless, exam-driven curriculum, and (4) expensive and outdated reliance on traditional classroom methods and laboratory equipment.

Vocationalization of the secondary curriculum. The issue of education for all versus elite preparation is more than simply a question of coverage. Most countries have based their education curricula on the needs of their elites rather than on the needs of their masses. Yet as coverage expands, the questions of vocational relevance and quality invariably arise. This is so because the single-purpose elite preparation that characterized the curriculum when enrollments were small is not suitable for the needs of the diverse majority.

The debate over the desired degree of vocationalization of the school curriculum is shifting grounds as the nature of the market for schooled labor changes. This debate is worldwide and intense. At the heart of the new debate is a redefinition of the school courses that are vocationally relevant. Science, mathematics, and English, all traditionally viewed as academic in the sense of college preparatory, are increasingly demanded for their vocational relevance. The case for a "new vocational curriculum" can be stated in these terms. At the close of World War II, people in industrialized countries expected to have a single career throughout their productive lifetime. Moreover, skills useful at the start of their careers were expected to remain so throughout their job tenure with only minimal retraining and updating required. Under these conditions specific job-skills training was valued for its immediate and long-term relevance to occupational requirements. But the workplace changed. Jobs were lost from heavy industry and agriculture to service and high-technology sectors. Even the remaining agriculture, equipment repair, and manufacturing jobs began to require higher levels of communication (reading and writing) and mathematics abilities. Market changes have seen massive redeployment of workers across sectors. Lifetime job security in a single sector gave way to needs for a flexibly trained and rapidly redeployable labor force, and with these changes came a redefinition of certain fundamental education requirements. Suddenly the general curriculum was vocationally relevant for a much larger share of the school-age population, including those not college bound.

Control. Who should control the structure and content of curriculum? Politicians? University professors? Teachers? Parent associations? When teachers are in control, the curriculum tends to emphasize individual needs and classroom realities. Teacher control can imply highly trained teachers, a condition difficult to meet in developing countries. When university professors are in control, the latest knowledge may be included but it is often academic–meaning abstract and overloaded with content–which is usually too difficult for the students at the grade level indicated. When politicians are in control, the needs of nationalism and social and economic development may be served, but factors relevant to successful learning may be ignored.