Page:CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7.pdf/37

 APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7

'''FIGURE 24. Structure of the educational system.'''

third innovation has been the training of numbers of scientists and technicians and a neglect of the liberal arts.

The Honecker regime does not subscribe to Ulbricht's faith in the efficacy of higher education for several reasons. The continuing labor shortage makes it difficult to justify large contingents of young people being held off the labor market in schools. Also, the regime has begun to experience surpluses in academically trained personnel, and is appalled at the waste of resources involved in placing these persons in positions inappropriate to their training. Finally, Honecker has taken to extolling the dignity of labor and the virtue of the working class in an effort to slow down the growth and influence of the white-collar technical-bureaucratic elite.

1. Organization

At the lowest level in the system (Figure 24) are the nurseries maintained by schools, enterprises, and cooperatives under the supervision of the Ministry for Health. Children whose mothers are working or studying are placed in day nurseries from the time they are a few weeks old until their third birthday. Parents may elect to send their children to kindergarten from the third through the sixth year. There are kindergartens sponsored by enterprises, cooperatives, and churches as well as public kindergartens operated by local governments. All kindergartens, however, must be licensed by the state and are under the general supervision of the Ministry for Education. In 1970 about 50% of all children between 3 and 7 years of age attended kindergartens (Figure 25); those who did not attend received special preparation during afternoons in their sixth year, before entering the compulsory public school system.

The core of the educational system is the 10-year comprehensive polytechnic school (allgemeinbildende polytechnische Oberschule), which is controlled by the Ministry for Education and the local governments. classes are coeducational throughout and are nondepartmental for the first three grades, referred to as the basic group. The curriculum for the basic group centers on German language, arithmetic, manual training, gardening, drawing, music, and sports. The variety of subjects studied is sharply increased in grades 4 through 6, referred to as the middle group, with the introduction of Russian, physics, biology, geography, and history, with an optional class in needlework. Parents and teachers at this stage must start to determine the occupations for which the children are best fitted. The upper group (grades 7 through 10) continues study on previous subjects with instruction at more advanced levels and is introduced to astronomy, chemistry, and civics, with an option to

32

APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110024-7