A HISTORICAL STUDY OF THE OPTIONAL SYSTEM IN THE SECONDARY SCIENCE EDUCATION IN THE USSR

Abstract

In the USSR, the science subjects, such as biology, physics, chemistry, and astronomy, are compulsory to every pupil at the secondary school level, and they can choose their favorite studies from the 7th grade onwards. This optional study was adopted in the curriculum of 'the single labour school' just after the Revolution. But the present system of compulsory learning of all science subjects in the USSR was established to guarantee the unity of school education and to give every pupil the systematic and firm knowledge of science during the reform in the 1930's. And the optional study was removed from the school curriculum at the same time. In the Khruschev's reform, the optional studies were resumed in the school curriculum. The optional study of science in that era was considered to be a supplemental part of the school curriculum for the purpose of strengthening the vocational and labour education. And in the reform of 1966, along with the advancement of the universal secondary education and the modernization of the contents of education, the optional studies were further expanded and changed in quality into the present style of optional studies. The development of the optional system in the secondary science education in the USSR had been conditioned by the social -and economic elements as well as the academic demand of science. This general trend was a little different in the case of the 1966 reform of curriculum: the reform was intended to cater for the education with emphasis on individual ability and aptitude, a fresh concept of education resulted from the psychological study of children which was actively carried out since the late 1950's.