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{{Short description|Education between primary and higher education}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2023}}

[[File:Calhan High School Senior Classroom by David Shankbone.jpg|thumb|upright=1.15|A high school senior classroom in the United States]]
'''Secondary education''' or '''post-primary education''' covers two phases on the [[International Standard Classification of Education]] scale: Level 2 (''lower secondary education'', less commonly ''junior secondary education'') is the second and final phase of [[basic education]], and Level 3 (''upper secondary education'' or ''senior secondary education'') is the phase immediately preceding [[tertiary education]]. Every country aims to provide basic education, but the systems and terminology remain unique to them. Secondary education typically takes place after six years of [[primary education]] and is followed by [[higher education]], [[vocational education]] or employment.{{sfn|ISCED|1997}} In most countries secondary education is [[compulsory education| compulsory]], at least until the age of 16. Children typically enter the lower secondary phase around age 12. Compulsory education sometimes extends to age 20 and further.

Since 1989, education has been seen as a basic human right for a child; Article 28, of the [[Convention on the Rights of the Child]] states that primary education should be free and compulsory while different forms of secondary education, including general and vocational education, should be available and accessible to every child. The terminology has proved difficult, and there was no universal definition before ISCED divided the period between primary education and university into junior secondary education and upper secondary education.

In classical and medieval times, secondary education was provided by the church for the sons of nobility and to boys preparing for universities and the priesthood. As trade required navigational and scientific skills, the church expanded the curriculum and widened the intake. With the [[Reformation]] the state began taking control of learning from the church, and with [[Comenius]] and [[John Locke]] education changed from being repetition of Latin text to building up knowledge in the child. Education was for the few. Up to the middle of the 19th century, secondary schools were organised to satisfy the needs of different social classes with the labouring classes getting four years, the merchant class five years, and the elite getting seven years. The rights to a secondary education were codified after 1945, and some countries are moving to mandatory and free secondary education for all youth under 19.

==Definition==
Secondary education refers to the stage of formal education that follows primary education and precedes higher education. It is typically offered to students between the ages of 12 and 18, although the specific age range may vary depending on the educational system and country. The purpose of secondary education is to provide students with a well-rounded education that prepares them for higher education or the workforce. It aims to develop their intellectual, social, and emotional skills, while also fostering critical thinking, creativity, and independence.

The 1997 [[International Standard Classification of Education]] (ISCED) describes seven levels that can be used to compare education internationally. Within a country these can be implemented in different ways, with different age levels and local denominations. The seven levels are:{{sfn|ISCED|1997}}
#Pre-primary education
#[[Primary education]] or first stage of basic education
#Lower secondary or second stage of basic education
#(Upper) secondary education
#Post-secondary non-tertiary education
#First stage of tertiary education
#Second stage of tertiary education

Within this system, Levels 1 and 2 – that is, primary education and lower secondary – together form '''[[basic education]]'''. Beyond that, national governments may attach the label of '''secondary education''' to Levels 2 through 4 together, Levels 2 and 3 together, or Level 2 alone. These level definitions were put together for statistical purposes, and to allow the gathering of comparative data nationally and internationally. They were approved by the [[UNESCO]] General Conference at its 29th session in November 1997. Though they may be dated, they do provide a universal set of definitions{{sfn|ISCED|1997}} and remain unchanged in the 2011 update.{{sfn|ISCED|2012}}

The start of '''lower secondary education''' is characterised by the transition from the single-class-teacher, who delivers all content to a cohort of pupils, to one where content is delivered by a series of subject specialists. Its educational aim is to complete provision of basic education (thereby completing the delivery of basic skills) and to lay the foundations for lifelong learning.{{sfn|ISCED|1997}}

Lower secondary education is likely to show these criteria:
*entry after some six years of primary education
*the requirement for more highly qualified teachers teaching only within their specialism
*exit to Level 3 courses, or vocational education, or employment after nine or more total years of education.

The end of lower secondary education often coincides with the end of compulsory education in countries where that exists.{{sfn|ISCED|1997}}

'''(Upper) secondary education''' starts on the completion of basic education, which also is defined as completion of lower secondary education. The educational focus is varied according to the student's interests and future direction. Education at this level is usually voluntary.

(Upper) secondary education is likely to show these criteria:
*entry after some nine years of basic education
*typical age at entry is between 14 and 16 years
*all teachers have level 5 qualifications in the subject they are teaching
*exit to Level 4 or 5 courses or to direct employment.{{sfn|ISCED|1997}}

More subjects may be dropped, and increased specialism occurs. Completion of (upper) secondary education provides the entry requirements to Level 5 tertiary education, the entry requirements to technical or vocational education (Level 4, non tertiary course), or direct entry into the workplace.

In 2012 the [[International Standard Classification of Education|ISCED]] published further work on education levels where it codified particular paths and redefined the tertiary levels. Lower secondary education and (upper) secondary education could last between two and five years, and the transition between two often would be when students were allowed some subject choice.{{sfn|ISCED|2012}}

Terminology for secondary schools varies by country, and the exact meaning of any of these varies.{{citation needed|date=March 2017}} Secondary schools may also be called ''[[Academy|academies]]'', ''[[college]]s'', ''[[Gymnasium (school)|gymnasiums]]'', ''[[High school (upper secondary)|high school]]s'', ''[[lyceum]]s'', ''[[middle schools]]'', ''[[University-preparatory school|preparatory school]]s'', ''[[sixth-form college]]s'', ''[[upper school]]s'', or ''[[vocational school]]s'', among other names. For further information about nomenclature, see the [[#By country|section below by country]].

==History==
{{further|History of education}}
A form of education for adolescents became necessary in all [[History of writing|societies that had an alphabet]] and engaged in commerce. In Western Europe, formal secondary education can be traced back to the [[Education in ancient Greece|Athenian educational reforms]] of 320BC. Though their civilisation was eclipsed and they were enslaved, Hellenistic Athenian teachers were valued in the [[Education in ancient Greece|Roman system]]. The Roman and Hellenistic schools of rhetoric taught the seven liberal arts and sciences – ''grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music'' and ''astronomy'' – which were regarded as a preparation for the study at a tertiary level of theology, law and medicine. Boys would have been prepared to enter these schools by private tutors at home. Girls would have only received tuition at home.{{sfn|Gillard|2017}}

England provides a good case study. When Augustine of Canterbury brought [[Christianity]] there in 597, no schools existed. He needed trained priests to conduct church services and boys to sing in the choir. He had to create both the grammar schools that taught Latin, to enable the English to study for the priesthood, and song schools (choir schools) that trained the 'sons of gentlefolk' to sing in cathedral choirs.{{sfn|Leach| 1915|loc=3}}{{sfn|Gillard|2017}} In the case of [[King's School, Canterbury|Canterbury]] (597) and [[King's School, Rochester|Rochester]] (604), both still exist. Bede in his ''[[Ecclesiastical History of the English People]]'' (732) tells that the Canterbury school taught more than the 'intended reading and understanding of Latin', but 'the rules of metric, astronomy and the [[computus]] as well as the works of the saints' Even at this stage, there was tension, as the church was worried that knowledge of Latin would give the student access to non-Christian texts that it would not wish them to read.{{sfn|Gillard|2017}}

Over the centuries leading to the [[renaissance]] and [[reformation]] the church was the main provider of secondary education. Various invasions and schisms within the controlling church challenged the focus of the schools, and the curriculum and language of instruction waxed and waned. From 1100, With the growth of the towns, grammar schools 'free' of the church were founded, and some church grammar schools were handed over to the laïty. Universities were founded that did not just train students for the priesthood.{{sfn|Gillard|2017}}

===Renaissance and Reformation===
Whereas in mainland Europe the [[Renaissance]] preceded the [[Reformation]], local conditions in England caused the Reformation to come first. The Reformation was about, among other things, allowing the laïty to interpret the Bible in their own way without the intervention of priests, and preferably in the vernacular. This stimulated the foundation of free grammar schools - who searched for a less constrained curriculum. [[Colonialisation]] required navigation, mensuration, languages and administrative skills. The laïty wanted these taught to their sons. After [[Gutenberg Bible|Gutenberg]] in 1455<ref name="Man">{{cite book | last=Man | first=John | title=Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words | publisher=John Wiley and Sons, Inc. | location=New York | isbn=0-471-21823-5 | year=2002 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/gutenberghowonem00john }}</ref> had mastered moveable metal type printing and [[Tyndale Bible|Tyndale]] had translated the Bible into English (1525),<ref>{{Citation |first=AC |last=Partridge |title=English Biblical Translation |place=London |publisher=Andrè Deutsch |year=1973 |pages=38–39, 52–52}}.</ref> Latin became a skill reserved for the catholic church and sons of conservative nobility. Schools started to be set up for the sons of merchants in Europe and the colonies too- for example [[Boston Latin School|Boston Latin Grammar School]] (1635).

[[Comenius]] (1592–1670),<ref>Daniel Murphy, ''Comenius: A Critical Reassessment of his Life and Works'' (1995), p. 8 and p. 43.</ref> a [[Moravians|Moravian]] [[protestant]] proposed a new model of education- where ideas were developed from the familiar to the theoretical rather than through repetition, where languages were taught in the vernacular and supported universal education. In his ''Didactica Magna'' (Great Didactic),<ref>{{cite web|last1=Comenius|title=Didactica Magna|url=http://studentzone.roehampton.ac.uk/library/digital-collection/froebel-archive/great-didactic/index.html|access-date=13 March 2017|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010092911/http://studentzone.roehampton.ac.uk/library/digital-collection/froebel-archive/great-didactic/index.html|archive-date=10 October 2014}}</ref> he outlined a system of schools that is the exact counterpart of many western school systems: kindergarten, elementary school, secondary school, six-form college, university.<ref>{{cite NIE|wstitle=Comenius, Johann Amos}}</ref>
[[John Locke|Locke]]'s ''[[Some Thoughts Concerning Education]]'' (1693) stressed the importance of a broader intellectual training, moral development and physical hardening. 

The grammar schools of the period can be categorised in three groups: the nine leading schools, seven of them boarding institutions which maintained the traditional curriculum of the classics, and mostly served 'the aristocracy and the squirearchy'; most of the old endowed grammar schools serving a broad social base in their immediate localities which also stuck to the old curriculum; the grammar schools situated in the larger cities, serving the families of merchants and tradesmen who embraced change.{{sfn|Gillard|2017}}

===Industrialisation===
During the 18th century their social base widened and their curriculum developed, particularly in mathematics and the natural sciences. But this was not universal education and was self-selecting by wealth.{{sfn|Gillard|2017}} The industrial revolution changed that. Industry required an educated workforce where all workers needed to have completed a basic education. In France, [[Louis XIV]], wrestled the control of education from the Jesuits, [[Marquis de Condorcet|Condorcet]] set up [[Collège]]s for universal lower secondary education throughout the country, then Napoleon set up a regulated system of [[Lycee]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=Markham|first1=David J|title=The Revolution, Napoleon, and Education|url=http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/society/c_education.html|website=www.napoleon-series.org|access-date=16 March 2017}}</ref> In England, [[Robert Peel]]'s [[Factory Act 1802]] required an employer to provide instruction in reading, writing and arithmetic during at least the first four years of the seven years of apprenticeship. The state had accepted responsibility for the [[basic education]] of the poor.
The provision of school places remained inadequate, so an Order in Council dated 10 April 1839 created the [[Privy Council|Committee of the Privy Council on Education]].{{sfn|Gillard|2017|loc=Section 2}}

===Universal education===
{{main|Universal education}}

There was considerable opposition to the idea that children of all classes should receive basic education, all the initiatives such as [[industrial school (Great Britain)|industrial school]]s and [[Sunday school]]s were initially a private or church initiative. With the [[Great Exhibition of 1851]], it became clear just how far behind the English education system had fallen.{{Sfn|Gillard|2017|loc=Section 2}}

Three reports were commissioned to examine the education of upper, middle and labouring class children. The [[Clarendon Commission]] sought to improve the nine Great Public Schools. The [[Taunton Commission]] looked at the 782 endowed grammar schools (private and public). They found varying quality and a patchy geographical coverage, with two thirds of all towns not having any secondary school. There was no clear conception of the purpose of secondary education. There were only thirteen girls' schools and their tuition was superficial, unorganised and unscientific. They recommended a system of first-grade schools targeted at a leaving age of 18 as preparation for upper and upper-middle-class boys entering university, second-grade targeted at a leaving age of 16 for boys preparing for the army or the newer professions, and third-grade targeted at a leaving age of 14 for boys of small tenant farmers, small tradesmen, and superior artisans. This resulted in the [[Endowed Schools Act 1869]] which advocated that girls should enjoy the same education as boys.{{sfn|Gillard|2017|loc=Section 3}}

The [[Newcastle Commission]] inquired "into the state of public education in England and to consider and report what measures, if any, are required for the extension of sound and cheap elementary instruction to all classes of the people". It produced [[Newcastle Commission|1861 Newcastle Report]] and this led to the [[Elementary Education Act 1870]] ([[33 & 34 Vict.]] c. 75) (Forster Act).{{sfn|Gillard|2017|loc=Section 3}}

The school boards set up by the Elementary Education Act 1870 were stopped from providing secondary education by the [[Cockerton Judgement]] of 1899. The school leaving age at this time was 10. The Judgement prompted the [[Education Act 1902]] (Balfour Act). Compulsory education was extended to 12. The new [[local education authority|local education authorities]] (LEA)s that were formed from the school boards; started to open [[higher elementary school|higher grade elementary school]]s (ISCED Level2) or county schools to supplement the endowed grammar schools. These LEAs were allowed to build second-grade secondary schools that in the main became the future [[secondary modern school]]s.{{Sfn|Gillard|2017|loc=Section 4}}

In the "''1904 Regulations for Secondary Schools''", the [[Board of Education (United Kingdom)|Board of Education]] determined that secondary schools should offer :
<blockquote>a four year subject-based course leading to a certificate in English language and literature, geography, history, a foreign language, mathematics, science, drawing, manual work, physical training, and, for girls, housewifery.{{Sfn|Gillard|2017|loc=Section 4}}</blockquote>

The [[Education Act 1918]] (Fisher Act) extended [[Raising of school leaving age in England and Wales#The Fisher Act of 1918|compulsory full-time education to 14]], and recommended compulsory part-time education from 14 to 18.
The [[William Henry Hadow|Hadlow report, "Education the Adolescent"]] (1926) proposed that there should be a break point at eleven, establishing primary schools and secondary schools.{{sfn|Gillard|2017|loc=Section 4}}

The [[United Nations]], founded in 1947, was committed to education for all but the definition was difficult to formulate.
[[The Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] (1948) declared that elementary and fundamental education, which it did not define, was a right to be enjoyed by all. The [[Education Act 1944]] (Butler Act) made sweeping changes to the funding of state education using the tripartite system, but was not allowed to tackle private schools. It introduced the GCE 'O'level at 16, and the 'A' at 18, but only raised the school leaving age until 15, making the exam inaccessible to the majority. But one year of ISCED Level 3 (Upper) secondary education was mandatory and free.{{Sfn|Gillard|2017|loc=Section 5}}

In 1972 the school leaving was raised to 16. The [[Education and Skills Act 2008]], when it came into force in the 2013 academic year, initially required participation in some form of education or training until the school year in which the child turned 17, followed by the age being raised to the young person's 18th birthday in 2015.<ref name="rpa_timeline">[http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/r/rpa%20timeline.pdf Raising the Participation Age – Timeline] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120904184538/https://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/r/rpa%20timeline.pdf |date=2012-09-04 }} HMSO, 24 August 2012</ref> This was referred to as raising the "participation age"<ref name="rpa_myth_buster">[http://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/r/130729%20mythbuster.pdf Raising the Participation Age (RPA) – Myth Buster for Young People]{{Dead link|date=February 2021 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} HMSO, 29 July 2013</ref> to distinguish it from the school leaving age which remains at 16.<ref name="know-when-you-can-leave-school">[https://www.gov.uk/know-when-you-can-leave-school School leaving age] HMSO, 19 November 2014</ref> Thus the UK is following the ISCED Level 3 (Upper) secondary education

Secondary education - Revision history