Maturitní zkouška v československém odborném školství v letech 1948–1953
The Matura Examination in Czechoslovak Vocational Education, 1948–1953

Summary/Abstract: The study focuses on a topic from the history of teaching methods in the fieldof secondary vocational education. Specifically, it focuses on the schoolleavingexams conducted in vocational education in Czechoslovakia inthe years 1948–1953. Its goal is to capture the form of the matura (schoolleaving)exam in this period, its organization and course. At the same time,however, the text also focuses on the practice by which the communistregime in Czechoslovakia influenced the matura exams, including thereasons for this practice. The study is based on data obtained mainlythrough the content analysis of documents from the period. Specifically,a number of legislative standards, various laws, directives, decrees, etc.,especially in the field of education, and several contemporary periodicalsfocused on the issue of (vocational) education that were published atthat time, such as the magazines Odborná škola, Nová škola, Jednotnáškola or Společenské nauky ve škole. The research carried out brings newresults, which have not yet been published anywhere, on two levels. Onthe one hand, it provides an insight into the implementation of the maturaexamination in vocational education in the first years of the communistregime in Czechoslovakia, when, for example, the so-called practicalexamination was introduced as part of the matura examination. On theother hand, it brings the knowledge that the communist government didnot perceive the school-leaving exams only as a means of enabling pupilsto have a final evaluation of their knowledge and skills acquired duringtheir studies in one of the fields of vocational education, but also as atool for strengthening economic or political goals, generally to consolidatetheir power, for example, by restricting the possibility of repeating thematura exam or by evaluating the pupil’s ideological attitudes towards thenew state system and socialist ideas in general.

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