The general secondary education reforms abroad and partly in Germany has been studied a lot for today but in spite of considerable amounts of researches the problem of educational reforms is very urgent. This research has not only historical and educational importance, but also allows to compare and probably to correct the process of reforms of school education in our country. During the research a complex analysis has been provided including historical and educational, theoretical and methodological problems of the secondary education reforms in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the period of the end of the XX th. – beginning of the XIX th. centuries. With the help of involving archives, official documents, periodical editions, monographs the main tendencies and peculiarities, preconditions and factors of the secondary education reforms in Germany were summarized, main stages of development were analyzed, law conditionals were described, state research of the problems of the school education reforms in Germany has been studied. The author in the thesis characterized the features of the secondary education reforms in the Federal Republic of Germany; analyzed the interpretation of the term «reform» and illustrated its conceptual distinction from related concepts such as «change», «modernization» and «transformation». Based on the analysis of achievements of the German scholars the author studied the concept of the school education reforms in Germany. The author implemented the periodization of the secondary education reforms in the Federal Republic of Germany beginning from its formation to the present time (it was highlighted its features and the reasons, preconditions of its current update, goals, objectives and principles of school reform in Germany). Much attention is given to the analysis of the direction of reform in the whole state, the proposed assessment of the current changes in German school and the prediction of their performance. The thesis gives a valuable characteristic of the general and distinctive features of the school systems of the eastern and western lands of Germany. In the thesis it was analyzed the peculiarities of the school system of unified Germany on the eve of reforms and the associated problems of German and Ukrainian schools. Common and distinctive features of the modernization of school education in Germany and Ukraine have been allocated; the all-European tendencies of the school update were revealed. In the thesis the author developed periodization of the educational reforms in Germany on the basis of certain factors, which in the thesis include: socio-political (the unification of the two German states: FRG and German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1989; the membership in the European Union in 1992 and the adoption of its educational initiatives) and education (participation of Germany in international comparative PISA study in 2000). Author’s periodization covers two periods. The first period (1989 – 2000) – reforms in the process of unification of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, which are characterized as integration reform; the second – reforms of the XXI century, aimed at school education quality and could be characterized as quality reform. Main purposes of educational reform were: organization more flexible system of planning educational courses, – f revision context and amount of educational programs; creation the system with free choice of various methods, ways and kinds of learning which answers on pupils' demands in the best way. The main policy in educational area was a part of government strategy in providing social conditions, when citizens are responsible for their welfare by themselves. The author underlined that integration of the reform of the first period was system level in the format of a policy model. A characteristic feature of the reforms of this period was the reform of the educational system of the GDR for the purpose of its integration into the educational system of united Germany. However it is established that the eastern lands did not go the way of blind copying of the western German model of education, modeling based on regional characteristics, which in the thesis is related to the introduction of new types of schools. Receiving the results of research mean that its main points, results and conclusions may be used for the next comparative research practice and theory of development and reform system of general secondary education in Ukraine and foreign countries. The author outlined the possibility of using the successful German experience on the reforms of the general secondary school education in Ukraine on strategic, educational and research levels.
