Secondary education is the final stage of compulsory education, preceded by primary education and followed by higher education. It is characterised by transition from the typically compulsory, comprehensive primary education for minors to the optional, selective tertiary, 'post-secondary', or 'higher' education (e.g., university, vocational school) for adults. Depending on the system, schools for this period or a part of it may be called secondary schools, high schools, gymnasiums, lyceums, middle schools, colleges, vocational schools and preparatory schools, and the exact meaning of any of these varies between the systems. The exact boundary between primary and secondary education varies from country to country and even within them, but is generally around the fifth to the tenth year of education. Secondary education occurs mainly during the teenage years. In the United States and Canada primary and secondary education together are sometimes referred to as K-12 education. The purpose of secondary education can be to give common knowledge, to prepare for either higher education or vocational education, or to train directly for a profession. This new book presents the latest research in the field.

The book is a cutting-edge contribution to the debate which has occurred for some time on the pros and cons of secondary education becoming more closely and explicitly related to preparing young people for the world of work. The book provides concrete examples of the vocationalisation of secondary education, with particular reference to the situation in Africa. The target audience for the book includes policy-makers, practitioners, administrators, education planners, researchers, teachers and teacher educators with a concern about the relationship between secondary education and education for the world of work (with particular reference to technical and vocational education and training - TVET.) The book appears in the Springer book series on ‘Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects’ and compliments the ‘International Handbook of Technical and Vocational Education and Training’ and other publications in the’ International Library of TVET’ all of which are publications of the ‘UNESCO-UNEVOC International Centre for TVET’ in Bonn, Germany

In this comprehensive and extensively researched history, John Roach argues for a reassessment of the relative importance of State regulation and private provision. Although the public schools enjoyed their greatest prestige during this period, in terms of educational reform and progress their importance has been exaggerated. The role of the public school, he suggests, was social rather than academic, and as such their power and influence is to be interpreted principally in relation to the growth of new social elites, the concept of public service and the needs of the empire for a bureaucratic ruling class. Only in the modern progressive movement, launched by Cecil Reddie, and the private provision for young women, was lasting progress made. Even before the 1902 Education Act however the State had spent much time and effort regulating and reforming the old educational endowments, and it is in these initiatives that the foundations for the public provision of secondary educational reform are to be found.