a plan according to which the curriculum of the higher grades in secondary general-education schools is divided into series or groupings. These center on such fields as the humanities, the natural sciences and mathematics, technical subjects, and agriculture, and place emphasis on a specific group of subjects. The curriculum may be divided into two groupings (a two-track system) or into three or more groupings. The track system is widespread in Great Britain, France, the USA, and other bourgeois countries. It violates the principle of a single mandatory range of general knowledge for all students.

In Soviet schools, elective subjects take the place of the track system. In 1960, elective subjects were introduced in Soviet schools beginning with the seventh grade. Their purpose is to provide more extensive general knowledge and vocational and polytechnic training, to help students develop their individual interests, and to guide students toward their eventual field of specialization.

From the eighth to the tenth or 11th grades, courses of intensified and specialized study are offered in various fields. These include mathematics and computer technology, physics and radio electronics, chemistry and chemical engineering, biology and agrobiology, various types of vocational training, art and sports, and specific branches of the humanities. In the USSR such specialization does not interfere with the learning of the required range of subjects, a knowledge of which is needed by every educated person, regardless of his future profession. Such interference is characteristic of the track system in the bourgeois countries.