 AN OVERVIEW

48. About a month's stay in the GDR is too short a period for any one to draw specific conclusions. But after hearing and reading about the programme of polytechnical education and seeing its actual implementation one is convinced that the introduction of polytechnical education or work experience in a systematic manner for the last so many years has made a great contribution in making school education meaningful in the GDR and relate education with. life and economic development.

49. A number of problems were faced, in the initial stages in introducing polytechnical education. These related to the preparation of teachers, selection of enterprises for providing work experience, placement of students in factories, training of skilled workers in teaching work. Certain enterprises expressed difficulties in collaborating because they did not have spare equipment and trained personnel. They did not have money to pay for the supervisors. In certain areas, there were small factories which could not provide training to the students. Certain parents did not like, in the initial stages, that their children should be sent to factories. They thought that this amounted to exploitation of children's labour. The parents of girls opposed the idea because they thought that girls could not enter modern professions. The students also were of the view, especially students belonging to Form X that they were working harder than their parents because there were 37 periods in a week which is equivalent to 28 hours. They had to put in another 28 hours or so in a week for doing home work and attending to other activities. All these difficulties have been over-

come. The parents, enterprises and the students have realized the contribution of work experience in vitalizing the educational system and relating it to the country's life and economic development.

50. In the initial stages, some academicians also were doubtful about the utility of introducing polytechnical education in the schools. They thought that it would dilute the academic achievement of students, but after some time they realized that work experience was not only useful but also helpful in courses like engineering, technology, medicine, and even in social sciences, because it gave students a deeper understanding of the life and activity of the working population and the world around.

51. The concept of polytechnical education has been very well defined and, therefore, its implementation is thorough. Teachers are trained with great care. In the G.D.R., there are 3,800 specialist teachers teaching polytechnical courses and the number of trained instructors, foremen, technicians and specialised engineers who supervise the work of students in various industrial and agricultural enterprises is about 60,000. In the Pedagogical Universities, Pedagogical Institutes and Teachers Training Colleges, there are special departments for Polytechnical Education staffed with experts from enterprises and educationists. The training of polytechnical teachers is thorough. Likewise the supervisors appointed by enterprises to look after the students in factories and farms are also given pedagogical training and courses of further education. The factories supply the necessary premises, work places, polytechnical instruction centres and also place the required materials, tools, machines and equipment at the disposal of the pupils.

52. Detailed courses of studies have been worked out and so also the text-books and reading materials. The

Central House of Publishers in Berlin, in close collaboration with experts in the field of pedagogy and industry and agriculture, has published detailed text-books for students and guide books for teachers relating to polytechnical. subjects. There is close collaboration between various industrial and agricultural enterprises and the educational institutions in providing work experience to students. In 1968-69, 8,27,000 students took part in the work in the factory once in a week. In areas where enterprises are not in close proximity to educational institutions, polytechnical cabinets are set up which are laboratories for polytechnical high schools. There are 5,500 polytechnical cabinets or laboratories for polytechnics. A number of enterprises combine together to equip polytechnical cabinets and here the students from the adjoining seven to ten institutions come by turns to get practical training.

53. The polytechnical principle accustoms the children to work, to the vital condition of human society. It broadens the child's horizon in the world of experience and thus helps it better to understand what it learns from the school books and to come to new terms with this knowledge. Production comes first in polytechnical instruction. It is the source from which pedagogy derives its knowledge.

54. Polytechnics, however, are not only a subject taught at school, but also a method of education. Not just the hours spent at the factory and in the polytechnical cabinet, but every single subject taught at school is linked up with production and life. The social significance of polytechnical education is that the child understands that work does not mean primarily earning money, but turning out something that benefits him and others. He begins to understand that work is socially necessary. He stops being just a producer and becomes a productive planner, a master of pro-

duction for whom production has become the means of life. The technical side is no less important. Exercising strength, practising skills, gathering knowledge and moulding character develop his various faculties.

55. Introduction of polytechnical education or work experience has been a great step in the modernization of education in the GDR. It has been found to be the surest method of producing educated and skilled citizens and training an adequate and competent intelligentsia. Work experience in the GDR has been introduced as an integral part of all education in which there is participation in pro- ductive work in school, in the home, in a workshop, on a farm, in a factory, or in any other productive situation. Every attempt has been made, with a great measure of success, to fink programmes realistically to technology, industrialization and application of science to productive processes, including agriculture. This is indeed a great achievement.