Talk:Secondary education

School students image
Image:Moanaluastudents.jpg is used in many articles about schools, it would be best to find a replacement before it is deleted for lack of source and copyright. If we all look together we should find one in no time. Please post your responses at Image talk:Moanaluastudents.jpg. Thanks! Foofy 21:06, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Merging secondary school to this entry
782 articles link to the stub "secondary school." How about a simple merge? - MPD 09:42, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Because it can be a disambig for "high school" OR "secondary education". WhisperToMe 03:04, 28 December 2005 (UTC)


 * True, but because one concept includes the other, the most rational approach would be to link to the larger topic and include a dab link at the top for the smaller one, no? - MPD 00:08, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with a merge.TrogdorPolitiks 19:54, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I Think having such a ridiculously short article is just a waste of an article, and could just as easily fit in with the other article. --SA@calcnet 06:02, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Just read "Secondary Schools", definately merge these two! --BakugekiNZ 21:38, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Secondary education expands beyond high school, in that middle school is also a form of secondary education. Secondary education should be the primary entry with high school and middle school being distinct in showing the differences in 5-8, 9-12 settings and other various such settings in which secondary education is completed. --Jon Cates 00:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm assuming you're talking about the American system. Did you consider my proposal below? At some point, Secondary education in the United States could spawn American high school and American middle school. I hope this article already helps somewhat in that it establishes an international context, and mentions middle school and high school as names used on this level. Would you have comments on this? As Americans are a major user group of the English language Wikipedia, perhaps Middle school, for example, should be a disambiguation page:

''Middle school may refer to:
 * American middle school
 * a distinct stage of formal education between primary and secondary education
 * several types of schools in early secondary education
 * several types of schools in late primary education
 * (based on looking at the current mess at Middle school) --TuukkaH 11:45, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree entirely, as the German school system is too complex to be thrown in the wash with our own.Alexnye 06:55, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The English language Wikipedia and the concept of secondary education are international, so we don't have "our own system" but instead we have to give an overview of the different systems. Whatever your own system, there is or can be a separate article for it. Rather than just "disagree entirely", could you perhaps propose something better to clean up this mess of articles, based on your expertise in secondary education? --TuukkaH 09:07, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Strong Disagree: The problem is not that the topics are similar, the problem is that the high school article is written like secondary education article. This article has to be rewritten as a more specialized section not a general article. But to claim they are all the same and throw them into one big mess called secondary education is outrageous for any "English" speaking foreign educated people.Steroid Expert 05:41, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Strong Disagree Why would we merge Gym with Secondary School? Just because a gym is in a secondary school, doesn't mean it shouldn't have its own article. That's stupid!

I cannot even find an article on secondary school. Secondary school gets diverted to high school which is a complete nonsense. It would make more sense to redirect secondary school to this page. A high school is a type of secondary school and the terminology is only used in certain countries (eg America). High schools and secondary schools are not one and the same thing and the terms are not interchangeable. There is I think a need for a separate article on high schools but much of the existing article on high schools seems to cover secondary education worldwide even in those countries which don't use the words high school. It would make much more sense to move say the UK content from the high school page to this page and also do the same for other countries which don't use the words high school. Dahliarose 09:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I've now removed the redirect from secondary school to high school and just included a simple listing of types of secondary school which can presumably be expanded. Secondary school does I think need to have a separate definition as does high school but the two terms cannot be used synonymously. Dahliarose 10:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with merging gymnasium with secondary school. I am teaching at a gymnasium (gümnaasium) in Estonia. What I have found to be unique about the Estonian gymnasium (compared to the American high school) is that it includes grades 1 through 12. In fact, on September 1, the traditional first day of school, there is a ceremony in which the 12th grade students formally welcome the 1st grade students. This short ceremony has a lot of symbolism with first/last, youngest/oldest, and of the journey through childhood and adolescence as well as through school grades. While there are separate head teachers for the primary grades and the secondary grades, there is one director, and all of the teachers attend the same teachers' meetings. School discos include students from grades 5 to 12 up until 22:00 and then only from grades 9 to 12 to 23:00. So I believe gymnasium is something special, especially in my American eyes, and something that encompasses much, much more than secondary education. A gymnasium is a community of youth from 5 or 6 years of age to 18. RobKevHog 18:32, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Gymnasium and secondary school articles should not be merged. I think this problem is even more complex. The thing is that educational systems around the world are organised in various ways, and it is virtually impossible to compare them, and in result it's difficult to explain all this in an international encyclopaedia. Something called gymnasium in one country refers to something very different in another country. In some countries term secondary school refers to the school that precedes university, whereas gymnasium precedes secondary school. In others however it does not act as the 'middle school' as mentioned above (Estonia). Term high school, in many countries for example in Poland can refer to university type education. As I have said merging gymnasium article with middle school article would not fit to the situation in Estonia, and probably some other countries. To sum up, the best solution IMO, would be to rewrite Gymnasium article so that it refers ONLY to the schools that are CALLED gymnasium, and explains its role in each country in which it exists. As it makes no sense to refer to the CONCEPT (MEANING) of gymnasium (as there is no homogenous meaning), we cannot talk about 'gymnasium-type' education for instance in Britain - as in current version of gymnasium article. Boyau 20:47, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Comparison Table
What is that comparison table supposed to be showing? There is no description or explanation for it and it makes no sense. What is the February/September thing about? Is that supposed to be the month and age at which that grade/year begins? Because the England/Wales school year begins in September, not February. Abc30 23:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree totally, someone in for example year 7 in the England and Wales could be 11yrs and a week or 12yrs and a couple of days. New intake year 7s for this year need to have been born between 1st September 1994 - 31st August 1995. As long as the hit the age of 12 this academic year, they qualify as intake 2006. If it's confusing there's no easy way to explain it, sorry!. It gets even more confusing when it comes to Sixth Form DannyM 11:21, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I'e deleted the table. I think probably the only person who understood what it was trying to show was its creator. Abc30 13:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Merging lyceum to this entry
Strongly Disagree Why would we merge Lyceum with secondary education? Lyceums have little to nothing to do with secondary education, if anything they deal with post-secondary education but they were certainly a prominant enough movement to even be seperate from that. I think someone was haveing too much fun trying to merge things. It is entirely inappropriate to merge lyceums with this article. -BenFranske 02:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Strong Disagree Lyceum as a word itself would require an article if we talk of ancient greek. Lyceum should not be merged because the word deserves an article. Arctic-Editor 11:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Strong Disagree, as many others above: The article "secondary school" really should be an overview of all school types after "elementary school" in all countries; Lyceum as known is a place in antient Greece as well as some specific schol types of some countries - that's not at all the same. ThomasPusch 11:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Clarification - I'm talking about the American Lyceum movement of the 19th century, not the other information. It should be noted that the American Lyceum movement was actually quite different than the Chautauqa movement, I should probably fix that... -BenFranske 02:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Merging high school to this entry
Some aspects of the existing high school article should I think be merged with this entry. High school is only used in certain countries but the existing high school article seems to have gone off at a complete tangent and included paragraphs about secondary education in countries (eg, the UK and the Republic of Ireland) which don't use the words high school at all. It would make much more sense to include those paragraphs in here instead. It makes sense to have a separate article on high schools but it should be confined only to those countries which use the terminology. Is high school perhaps synonymous with secondary education in America? Is that perhaps where the confusion has crept in? Dahliarose 09:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It should be noted that in the United States, many students who choose to enter into university and college are forced to repeat their "secondary education" in a way at university. The first, and sometimes second, year of a student's college career focuses on rehashing and needlessly reminding students of things they've learned in their secondary education. It's an old tradition that meant to make students more well-rounded but has not held up well with education advancement over time. Many other industrialized and advanced nations have streamlined university by doing away with these archaic courses however the US still sees use in them mainly for profit reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:1313:C277:3471:CCC3:9C64:4A0D (talk) 01:34, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Actually there are a few secondary schools in the Repuplic of Ireland called highschools so the word is used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.152.152 (talk) 22:42, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Grades
I think the entries for the countries where grades are used need to be explained properly. We need to know what ages are covered by each grade. It might be obvious if you live in the country concerned but not to someone who lives elsewhere. Presumably different grades will cover different ages in different countries. Dahliarose 10:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Compleation proportion
I hard some where that over half the worlds population that recently finished education compleated secoundary education. Is this true?--J intela (talk) 22:56, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup needed
Sorry for the lazy edit with the cleanup template, but the India section needs to either be shortened and cleaned (and I have not the time nor the knowledge to do so), or reverted to a previous state, it looks like some copy/paste edit. I'll come back later to fix the Argentina section that seems almost empty, and somehow biased (I live in Argentina, and I know CNBA it's ONE of the best highschools available; from that to be THE best in Argentina, I dunno -maybe someone has a verified source?-). El Oso (talk) 05:18, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

Does the current image, "A girl with the typical Chilean school uniform in 1994" have any encyclopedic benefit or representative character with respect to the entry "secondary education"? My answer is "No." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.120.139.253 (talk) 22:24, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

sigdren?
I am no native speaker, but what does "sigdren" mean? It appears inside the part about "Hauptschule" in Germany. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.20.28.176 (talk) 08:25, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

What about Turkey?
There are many countries, but what about Turkey? 137.138.140.236 (talk) 10:48, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Weird choice of image
There is an image of Krabbesholm Højskole close to the entry on Denmark's secondary education. This makes no sense seeing that they don't offer any kind of secondary education. The Danish word højskole translates litterally into high school but actually means a folk high school, which is probably why it has been chosen. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.225.98.206 (talk) 12:18, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Improvement by focussing on the title
There are two articles- equally badly written Secondary school and secondary education both are high profile. Secondary education is about the history and theory sociology and implementation of school systems. A secondary school is a mere element of secondary education. Its scope is restricted to the individual institutions and is far more difficult to define. Please tell me what it actually is. Two things are obvious, complete pages on the secondary education system of a particular country is over prominence. In my opinion, the country specific information belongs in a separate article which is then referred to with a main. The synopsis following should just give enough information to satisfy the general reader, for example a worker that is being deported and needs to know what adjustments his children will have to make!

This raises the interesting possibility that a country specific article School system in XXXXistan could be the landing page for main in both Secondary school and secondary education. Many of these articles exist. Can anyone suggest whyu it may be inappropriate to create a stub for countries where they are missing?

If no-one has specific objections I will start to clear out - cull- zap text from here or move it where possible to country specific article or neawly crated stub. We then need to address the problem of what non-country specific information do we need to include.

These paragraphs are also posted at Talk:Secondary school ClemRutter (talk) 09:16, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Attributions-

Then a section was copied back ! ClemRutter (talk) 15:17, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

UNESCO position paper
Section not integrated into article- placed here for further use in related articles or deletion

Improving the sections on individual countries
After having looked at quite a few- the one on Sweden is a good model. It state when education is compulsory and when it is free- it is focused on the education system not individual schools. It covers both ISCED 2 and 3, with passing reference to other stages. IMHO lists of subjects belong in the main article not here unless they are unusual. It seems a trend to have three or more strands at ISCED 3 (academic, vocational, artistic) and this should be mentioned. Comments? --ClemRutter (talk) 11:52, 31 March 2017 (UTC)


 * We now have a navbox template linkng the sec ed /sec school sections for each country. In this will be a link to a new list page where we can stable all the descriptions of individual countries- title not settled yet but on the lines of List of secondary education systems by country. ClemRutter (talk) 19:12, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

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History: just England
At the moment, the "History" section is entirely about England. I think info here belongs in History of education in England instead. Alianoraree (talk) 21:23, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

Awful article.
I doubt if many people reading this article would disagree that it is very bad. For instance in the lead, the claim is made that "every country aims to provide basic education". First of all, it simply isn't true. If the editors want to make the claim that "every country" has enacted laws making education compulsory AND if the article points out that in some (many? IDK) countries, those laws are not enforced or their public education is unable to accommodate their entire student-aged population or that the education provided in some countries is widely considered to be inadequate then it would make sense to include it. Otherwise it's just propaganda. The lead goes on to state that "Secondary education ... is followed by higher education, vocational education or employment." Uh, another obviously false statement. Under the usual definition of employment, what follows primary ed may be employment, unemployment, marriage, work for their family/relatives (i.e. on the farm), and probably several that don't occur to me.

The article quotes UNESCO's claim that the teenage years are the most rapid phase of mental growth. I doubt that. At birth the brain has reached about a quarter of its maximum (adult size), but by age one it has reached a whopping 70%! And by 10 years, 98% - clearly claiming that mental growth is most rapid after 10 requires suspension of disbelief although claiming that ACADEMIC abilities (growth) increase most rapidly in secondary school may be true. Later on in the article is states:"Each country has developed the form of education most appropriate for them." Seriously? If I were to say each individual has a quality of life most appropriate for them, would that go unchallenged?? There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to believe that each country has perfected its educational system to that degree. For instance, the US State of Ohio has been funding its public schools with property taxes for decades despite their Supreme Court finding such a system unconstitutional. Appropriate is exactly what it is not. I could go on.

I applaud the use of relevant global terminology, but the pollyanna-ish tone reads like propaganda, no strike that, IS propaganda and not a serious article about the world's secondary educational systems.

The article is also confusing: it switches back and forth between basic education and primary education (the former includes lower secondary education) without rhyme or reason. If this article is about secondary education, and secondary education can be (and generally is) divided between lower and upper secondary, then the structure of this article should mirror that.

Obviously. The article is out-dated. It makes claims about what should happen by 2015, for example. Way too long ago to be relevant to anything (except as a historical note, perhaps). Finally, the term is used to mean DIFFERENT things. It is typically (I think) used in different countries (or its translation) to have some meaning for their local educational system. That's important enough, imho, to be included in the lead's first paragraph.40.142.191.32 (talk) 08:20, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the first stage is for the ip-user to register a user name so he can get fully involved in contributing, and in particular have a watchlist and a talkpage. There are four pages i would like to see him watching straight away! I have taken the liberty of putting double line feeds in the ip-user text to make it more readable. The content of the coment is valid criticism and needs to be examined- I suspect by someone who has immediate access to a university or teacher training college library.ClemRutter (talk) 09:52, 9 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I agree in part, it was a pleasure reading his good writing. The lede is jam packed with techno-jargon and lazy links (bad writing) violating several mainstream Wiki guidelines. (For example this gibberish: "Level 2 or lower secondary education (less common junior secondary education) is considered the second and final phase of basic education, and level 3 (upper) secondary education is the stage before tertiary education." ...in the very first paragraph does NOT belong in the intro section - the reader (like me) is prolly here cuz he doesn't even know what "secondary education" is...duh!. I too thought; this thoughtful, informed, clean-writing guy needs to be an author!  (But "the use of relevant global terminology?" For which audience is THAT targeted!? Professionals, Not general audiences.)  And I too saw that his authorship would be a heartbreak or futile without his registering.


 * However I disagree with your suggestion of "the ip-user to register a user name." (Several have suggested that I do that.)  That goes against the founding "Everyman" principles of Wikipedia, as do those privileges you list. That mess needs serious reform and, gulp, time and effort to correct.  From my experience, registration means crypto-police powers (including robo-cops and badge-like "awards" to entice authoritarians) commonly used to bully and punish inferior non-clubbers, —how dare those low-lifes, those, those... Others! So? Who would want to be a part of that?  (Therefore I too refuse that battle of attempting to edit,  —club-required, —therefore now I only make suggestions.)  My suggestion for this problem is; too much police power goes to newbie clubbers.  And the cops need more supervision.      some — are more equal than others  --2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:55DF:D8:B913:2FFB (talk) 21:47, 23 December 2019 (UTC)Just Saying

Numerous Circular References
There are a lot of citations in this article that reference the article itself, which (I assume) is clearly not acceptable. I tagged one when I first noticed it, but there are a bunch more that I don’t have the time to sort through. It seems based on the other discussions that this page is a mess in general so if anyone has the time and inclination I think it needs a complete overhaul. Andyharbor (talk) 16:48, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * the ref you tagged here is not a circular reference, it is a reference to a Unesco document, "OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF BASIC EDUCATION" (PDF). UNESCO. UNESCO. 2007. Retrieved 13 March 2017, listed in "Bibliography" at the bottom of the page. Unfortunately yhe link there is broken, but that does not make it a circular ref. DuncanHill (talk) 17:01, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:55, 11 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Indian schoolgirls.jpg

History - Revisions Needed
Clem Rutter's writings on the history of education have been edited somewhat (With more glaring comments and claims, such as that 'all traces of civilisation were erased' from England following the receding of the Roman Empire, or more explicitly single-minded versions of claims about the origins and doctrine of the Protestant Reformation, and perhaps some others), but if they're kept here, they ought to be more substantially revised, in tone, in claims about the limits of Medieval education (I.e. that it was limited to mere 'repetition' of Latin text), in sources of claims (The Catholic Church was explicitly reluctant to service scientific pursuit, navigational expertise, etc. in Medieval education?), and in the post-and-mid-Reformation and earlier Medieval (Notably the former) development of Western European education, if this is necessary for an article on secondary education; As well as some minor stylistic oddities. 2601:806:4301:B5F0:2DF9:3CED:1100:C97C (talk) 04:06, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Secondary education
Googal 103.155.213.237 (talk) 07:16, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Populations
all 202.51.69.17 (talk) 12:55, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Chemistry
Balancing  equition  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 105.161.141.12 (talk) 15:45, 11 February 2023 (UTC)