七十年代世界主要國家中等教育制度發展趨勢之比較

各級教育中，中等教育是最複雜，問題最多的一個教育階段。因為在初等教育階段，個人的能力性向尚未分化，實施共同教育不致產生太大的困難；到了高等教育，經過中等教育階段的選擇，能力方面大致已能維持一定的水準，且個人的興趣、性向，大致已經穩定，因此實施專門教育，亦無太大的問題。但是中等教育則不然，一方面此一時期的青少年，能力性向的差異逐漸擴大，另一方面基於教育機會均等的原則，又未便草率實施分化教育，而常在分化與不分化，以及如何分化等問題上面發生爭論。換言之，中等教育是由未分化的教育階段，進到分化教育階段的過度時期；此時最理想的做法當然是在分化之前做適當的觀察與輔導，使分化後的教育能適合個人的能力與性向，而使其潛能得以充分發揮。但是問題是怎樣才是「適當」的觀察與輔導，並無一定的標準，亦無真正科學的方法可供使用，因此怎樣的教育才是「適合」個人能力與性向的教育，就很難斷定。 另一方面，由於教育的普及，義務教育年限的延長，使得中等教育階段學生的組成更加複雜；如何何輔導這些能力、性向極端紛歧的學生，選擇適當的進路，實是中等教育很難解決的問題，因此近年各國學校制度問題與其改革措施，也大都集中在此一階段。同時近來許多學校制度的研究，也都以中等教育為主題。

The purpose of this study is to compare the recent development of secondary education systems among eight Countries-Britain (England and Wales)， France， two Germanies (West and East)， The United States， Japan， The USSR， and The Republic of China (Taiwan)， and to find out the general trends and specific features in these countries. After a comparative analysis， we find the following major facts: 1.In above-mentioned countries， the lower secondary education has more and more become general or comprehensive education in recent years; 2.The differenciated education which begins at the transfer from the lower to the upper stage is the tendency of the development of secondary education; 3.Although the differenciated lower secondary education in West Germany， France， and Britain， are now being transited gradually to comprehensive styles， but it seems difficult to reach at completely unified system of secondary education. 4.Those countries where completely undifferenciated lower secondary education system were accomplished， are now encountering a difficult problem of how to meet the differenciation of individual capacity for learning and how to meet the variety of propensities of the students in one unified school or class. In traditional European systems， this kind of problem was solved with separate types of school systems， such as “Tripartite system” or “Multilateralism”.