Chapter 413 Dual System Middle School
After discussing naval issues, it was still mainly up to Archduke Ferdinand, the head of the navy, to operate, while Constantine was responsible for coordinating resources.
Ernst will preside over the next government education meeting because the construction of public middle schools is also on the agenda because of the graduation of the first batch of primary school students in East Africa.
"At present, East Africa has completed the universalization of basic primary education, and the first batch of students has graduated. This is a good thing for the kingdom. However, compared with other countries in the world, our education system is incomplete, especially advanced education. This means that after graduation, students can only participate in further education and training unless they are selected by the country because of their excellent academic performance. But what to do with the remaining students is an important issue." Education Minister Dijk Graf said at the meeting.
Ernst: "Secondary education is different from primary education. It requires teachers of higher quality. At present, we cannot fully staff the relevant personnel. It may take a few years. Therefore, we must first make the students and teachers suffer. We can first gather the students and establish boarding schools in towns or cities. At the same time, we can change the small class teaching system in primary school to large class teaching, and then switch back when teachers are no longer scarce."
This was actually the situation when Ernst was in school in the countryside in his previous life. There were middle schools only in towns and above, and it was rare to have middle schools in villages. After primary education was popularized in East Africa, almost every village had a primary school, but middle schools could not be as popular as primary schools.
This is mainly Ernst's fault, because in the early stage of talent training, the focus is on the military and the government. This leads to the fact that the intellectuals trained by Hexingen are almost all quick-trained. It is okay to cope with elementary schools, but the teachers needed in middle schools cannot be so casual. It is impossible to meet the standards without several years of cultivating knowledge reserves.
In this era, middle schools were not divided into junior high schools and high schools like in later generations. The signs of high schools only appeared in Europe in the mid-19th century, and they were generally used as preparatory schools for college.
Ernst also has no plans to develop high school education, as two systems are totally unnecessary. This requires that the length of study in East African middle schools be increased, as there is a lot to learn, so that students can better connect with European universities.
Ernst went on to say, "Secondary education cannot be fooled like primary school. We can fool ourselves, but European universities will not accept such students. For secondary education, we must strengthen management, enhance subject learning, especially the choice of cultural courses, and implement student diversion after the primary school graduation examination. The top 20% of students will go to liberal arts middle schools, and the rest will go to technical middle schools."
A liberal arts high school is similar to a combination of a junior high school and a senior high school in the past, while a technical high school is similar to a technical secondary school. Nowadays, European universities do not recruit students from technical high schools. Having said that, in fact, in this era, only ordinary families can afford to go to technical high schools.
Ernst, an outstanding talent who has received a full nine years of compulsory education, intends to bring it to East Africa in one step and make secondary education an important part of compulsory education in East Africa.
Ernst concluded: "Compulsory education in East Africa should be divided into two stages. First, there is universal primary education, which every East African child must receive. The school system is five years. Then there is a dual system of secondary education, which is also universal, but the difference between the two is that students with excellent grades are prepared for further study in college, while students with average grades are prepared for entering society. The school system is also five years."
Allowing middle school students with average academic performance to directly enter society after graduation is not because Ernst does not attach importance to education issues, but because this is the characteristic of our era.
Take Belgium as an example. In 1842, the proportion of child laborers (aged 5-9) employed by a cotton mill was 1%. By 1879, the number of child laborers in this age group had risen to 9%. The proportion of older child laborers (aged 10-14) reached 34% in 1859.
Of course, a country like Belgium is a little special after all. After all, Leopold II was indeed a model of a benevolent Belgian monarch and he did achieve some results in industrializing Belgium. However, the casualties of the brutal industrialization were Belgian women and children who had to enter factories and mines.
Prussia was quite special. Although Prussia implemented compulsory education, which allowed school-age children to complete their primary education in school, the original intention was rather strange. Because child laborers entered factories, the army was short of reserves. For military reasons, Prussia promulgated the first modern worker protection law. It stipulated that child laborers under the age of 10 could not be employed, and those under the age of 16 could not work for more than 16 hours. Well, it was in line with the style of Prussian militarism, but anyway, the result was good.
Of course, Germany was loose before, and each state had its own laws. After Prussia unified Germany, Bismarck began to work on German legislation, promoting Prussian laws throughout Germany and improving previous laws and regulations.
In comparison, children in East Africa are relatively happy. The East African kingdom has enacted strict laws since the colonial era, prohibiting children under the age of seven from participating in social labor, and children over the age of seven must participate in compulsory education.
Primary school in East Africa is a five-year system, and they will be at least twelve years old when they graduate. Those who have excellent grades or complete their studies ahead of schedule can be nominated by their teachers to participate in the kingdom's twice-yearly unified special entrance examination and then go to study in Europe.
Therefore, although the first batch of East African official students only had 500 people, in fact, a very small number of students had gone abroad to study in advance during the special recruitment, but the number was only 43, and these people were the legendary geniuses. Excluding this group of people, 317 of the remaining 862 people directly entered the Hexingen Military Academy.
The rest are students who cannot enter the Heixingen Military Academy directly due to physical fitness or gender (girls) and other reasons, so they need to repeat the First Town City Primary School and wait until the First Town City Middle School is completed before they can enter middle school, and it is a liberal arts middle school. This can be considered a special period and special treatment.
The total number of primary school students in the first class of East Africa mentioned above is 1,405, which is the data for the entire East African Kingdom.
This is easy to understand. East Africa generally screens immigrants in the Far East. Immigrants under the age of fifteen are not allowed to immigrate to East Africa alone (excluding those with families). After all, most people cannot withstand the storms at sea.
This situation changed dramatically as time went by since the establishment of the East African colonies. Because of the huge increase in the number of immigrants from the East African kingdoms and the explosion in birth rates, schools in East Africa would probably be overcrowded in a few years.
After East African primary school students graduate, they will enter the same five-year secondary school to continue their education. When they graduate, they will be seventeen years old, which Ernst thinks is a more reasonable age.
East Africa raises them to adulthood, and the rest is entirely up to them. From a national level, the East African government has fully fulfilled its responsibilities.
Ernst went on to say, "In essence, the secondary education we implement is still poor education, so the unified examination will inevitably sacrifice diversity. Therefore, we cannot ignore some students who are seriously unbalanced in certain subjects but are extremely good in other subjects. The government can conduct special inspections on these students, organize national single-subject examinations, purify these students, and establish a special school. However, this school should be placed in cities or large towns. This can also be regarded as our preferential treatment for special talents."
(End of this chapter)
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