In the past, early childhood education was not developed enough and was generally not included in the school education system. In recent years, due to the emphasis on early education and the rapid popularization of early childhood education, most countries have emphasized that early childhood education is the first link of the whole education system, so early childhood education has been incorporated into the school system. Related to this, it has brought two changes in the early childhood education stage. First, the end of early childhood education tends to advance: 7 years old is 6 years old, such as the former Soviet Union and other countries; 6 years old is advanced to 5 years old, such as the former West Germany and other countries. Second, the relationship between early childhood education and primary education is strengthening, and even the upper grades of early childhood education are combined with the lower grades of primary school. Some countries also advocate setting up kindergartens in primary schools to better carry out early education. Britain has stipulated three stages: 5 ~ 7 years old, 7 ~ 9 years old and 9 ~ 1 1 year old, which combines preschool education with primary education. Preschool classes run by primary schools and kindergartens in China are also trying to strengthen the connection between early childhood education and primary education.
An important reason for this trend is that educational science and psychological science research believe that infancy and infancy are important periods of life development, and the level of human development depends largely on early education. Bloom, an American psychologist, put forward that the general way of human intelligence development is: compared with the intelligence level reached at the age of 17, it accounts for about 50% at the age of 4, 30% at the age of 4-8 and the last 20% at the age of 8- 17. To some extent, this shows that attaching importance to early childhood education will have a great impact on people's life development. This scientific research achievement has aroused the attention of countries all over the world to early education and promoted the popularization and development of early childhood education.
Second, gradually extend the period of compulsory education.
Popularizing compulsory education is the product of the industrial revolution's requirements for the cultural, scientific and professional technical literacy of the labor force. With the development of the industrial revolution promoted by the scientific and technological revolution, the years of popularizing compulsory education have been extended and the compulsory nature has been strengthened, and more countries and regions have implemented compulsory education. The development law of universal compulsory education in the world in the past hundred years shows that the first industrial technological revolution marked by steam engine requires workers to have a primary school education level, and compulsory education is popularized to the primary school level (6-year system); The second industrial technological revolution marked by electrification requires workers to have junior high school education level, and compulsory education will be popularized to junior high school level (9-year system); The third industrial technology revolution, marked by nuclear energy, electronics and space technology, requires workers to have a high school education or above, and compulsory education has developed to the high school level, which has appeared in western developed countries. Such as the United States, Japan and other countries. In Japan, 96% of junior high school graduates of 1978 enter senior high schools, and 12-year compulsory education has actually become universal. China, Shanghai and other big cities and suburbs have also begun to popularize 12-year compulsory education, that is, high school education.
Third, general education and vocational education are getting closer and closer.
The development trend of the relationship between general education and vocational education in secondary education stage is: professionalization of general education and popularization of vocational education. The so-called specialization of general education refers to offering vocational and technical or labor technical elective courses in general basic education schools; The so-called popularization of vocational education means strengthening the teaching of general science and culture in vocational and technical education schools. Obviously, the distance between general education and vocational education is getting closer and closer. In the future, there will be general education that is integrated with vocational education and vocational education that is not strictly divided. It is even possible to combine general education and vocational education that have been separated in history very closely until they are integrated. From the perspective of the world, the mutual penetration, combination and approach of general education and vocational education, and their gradual development in the direction of unification, will become a very important trend and direction of school education system reform in all countries of the world.
The reason for this trend is not only the need to improve the comprehensive quality and cultural level of the labor force and all kinds of talents in modern society, but also the requirement of educational democratization-the expansion of individual educational choice is the necessity of lifelong education.
Fourthly, the diversification and popularization of higher education.
Due to the demand of science and technology and economic development for all kinds of high-level talents, higher education in all countries of the world has developed rapidly, and its trend is mainly manifested in two aspects: First, the diversification trend of higher education institutions. Diversification has two characteristics: multi-level and multi-type: multi-level means that traditional universities extend down to the junior college level and up to the master's and doctoral levels. This phenomenon is embodied in the "three-level system" of primary school colleges (community colleges), universities and graduate schools in the United States, and in Japan it is embodied in four types: universities, short-term universities and junior colleges. Multi-type refers to the diversification of educational forms, including academic qualifications and non-academic qualifications, full-time and amateur, training and further study. In China, it is embodied in six forms: ordinary full-time university, TV university, night university, correspondence university, vocational university and self-taught university.
On the other hand, higher education is developing towards popularization. Popularization of higher education mainly means that young people who enjoy higher education reach or exceed 50% of their peers. This is a concept of educational development, which indicates that social development and civic education demand have reached a higher level. Some scholars also understand the popularization of higher education as the secularization and "life-oriented" trend of universities, and think that it is the popularization trend of higher education to add majors to train intermediate scientific and technological personnel and managers to undertake the task of updating the knowledge of on-the-job personnel, and to change the singleness of traditional universities that emphasize academic knowledge, only one-time training and only train senior experts.
Five, pay attention to continuing education and lifelong education.
With the rapid development of modern production and modern science and technology, the "explosion" and "aging" of knowledge make people regard the education they receive as an era of lifelong enjoyment. No matter how highly educated people are, they should always supplement their knowledge in order to keep up with the pace of scientific and technological development, and even need to go back to the education process to supplement their knowledge. Therefore, regression education, adult education, continuing education and lifelong education have been put forward one after another, and educational institutions such as correspondence universities, radio and television universities, self-taught universities, night universities, staff universities and open universities have been widely developed. In the past, adult education, which had no place in the school system, was not only incorporated into the school education system, but also gradually formed a complete adult education system connected with general education and higher education, which constituted a supplement to the school education system of teenagers from primary school to university and from general education to vocational education in the past. This is an important development trend of modern school education system.