APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090021-3
(humanities), social sciences, natural sciences, business, and technical arts. Students enrolled in the technical program can take a fourth year at certain central gymnasiums and receive an engineering diploma. Provision is made for a core of common subjects supplemented by a number of subjects specific to each of the five curriculums in each grade. The common core of subject is largest in the first year, when 70% of the teaching matter is common to all students. All students, except those concentrating in technical arts, are required to study three foreign languages for at least 1 year each. Latin and Greek are no longer compulsory, but may be pursued as electives in the liberal arts curriculum instead of a modern foreign language. No comprehensive examinations are now set in the gymnasium. Replacing the studentexamen are marks given on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 as the highest possible mark. In the second and third years of the gymnasium standardized tests are given to certain subjects. With the help of these tests the level of marks in each class can be established, and marking can be standardized throughout the country. The requirement for university entrance is a given minimum mean mark. The new gymnasium thus remains the avenue to university admission, and the level of study is comparable to that of a good junior college in the United States.
The continuation school is a new 2-year gymnasium-level school that was introduced in 1966. The requirement for admission is the completion of the comprehensive school, and, like the gymnasium, admission is based on the final grades received in the last year of the comprehensive school. In order to make the continuation school training available to those who after a period of employment wish to resume theoretical studies, 25% of the places in the first year class are reserved for students with a minimum of either 2 years of vocational school training or 3 years of practical experience to their credit. The continuation school is somewhat less theoretical than the gymnasium, and it aims at a practical application of the theoretical courses. It offers three distinct 2-year programs: social science, business, and technical. The social science course provides a basis for further training for different kinds of social service employment. The business and technical courses can lead either to employment or to further education. After completion of the continuation school, students may move to the second year of the gymnasium if there is space available. Unlike the gymnasium, completion of the continuation school does not qualify the students for entrance into the university.
Vocational training is being revised in 1972 to afford a 2-year program for most trades, although both longer and shorter courses of training will be available. The new curriculums are to be more broadly structured, and further training will therefore be necessary on the job after completion of school. The first few months of course work will be the same for all students, but then it will become increasingly specialized. Direct vocational training will be supplemented by an increased amount of general education; for example, Swedish and physical education will be compulsory subjects, in addition to at least one theoretical subject. At present vocational training is considerably more specialized and of a more varying duration.
During 1972 the gymnasium, the continuation school, and the vocational school will be merged into one type of school known as the secondary school (gymnasieskolan). The gymnasieskolan will have 21 lines of study; five of these are contained in the present gymnasium, three in the present continuation school, and the remaining 13 in the present vocational school. The gymnasium and continuation school syllabi will be transferred essentially intact to the new secondary school, while the vocational lines of study will be given new syllabi based on the reform of vocational training taking place in 1971 and 1972.
b. Higher education
The continuing rapid increase in university enrollments outlined above will probably not slacken, at least for a while. Since the suppression of the difficult university matriculation examination, the studentsexamen, and the ever increasing availability of student financial aid, provided even handedly by the state without parental means tests, a much larger proportion of upper secondary student is completing gymnasium studies and going on to higher education. Going further back toward the source of the stream that has become a flood, the creation of the comprehensive school in the pre secondary phase of education permits the postponement of decisions on specialization until the age of 16, thus encouraging more students to continue their education after the 9-year period of compulsory schooling.
Between 1920 and 1960 the number of Swedes holding university degrees doubled roughly every 20 years, and from 1960 to 1980 it is estimated that the number of degree holders will double every 10 years. The number of first degrees awarded increased from 326 in 1950/51 to 7,690 in 1967/68, and is expected to be 20,000 by 1975. The proportion of 26-year-olds
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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200090021-3
