The period of communism is a long-standing historical experience for some European countries. For a number of so-called post-socialist states, it represents a crucial historical period which they are trying to deal with to the present days. The Czech Republic is no exception. As well as in other post-socialist countries, society in Czechoslovakia underwent some difficult development phases under the socialist regime. Communist ideology interfered with all aspects of life in Czech society and influenced each individual to a varying degree. In this context, schools and education played an important role from the point of view of the ruling regime. Teachers, according to the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, should have been literally an ideological tool, "through which the party arms rising generations and masses ... with the communist morals" (Zounek, Šimáně, & Knotová, 2017, p. 74). It is evident that in socialist Czechoslovakia, education was under the control of the ruling regime and was meant to fulfil the regime's goals. Almost thirty years after the Velvet Revolution, we only have limited knowledge about how the education and schools in general were shaped at this time, how, for example, everyday life in schools looked like, how the teachers fulfilled demands of the regime at schools etc. Historical-pedagogical research on vocational education and training during socialist Czechoslovakia is then entirely neglected. So far, apart from a few general remarks in short review articles (e.g. Cach, 1991a, 1991b), there is no scientific text studying this topic in depth. Research on this issue, therefore, represents a real challenge. Nevertheless, it is possible to find inspiration abroad, where historical-pedagogical research of vocational education and training has a long tradition, especially in countries not affected by the Communist dictatorship. However, the issue of the history of education or vocational education and training has also been studied in several post-socialist countries (see e. g. Mincu, 2016; Kestere & Kalke, 2018; Rahi-Tamm & Saleniece, 2016), not only to map this issue in period of communist rule but also to understand the subsequent development after the fall of totalitarian regimes in individual countries. Research of secondary technical schools (ISCED 3) in the period of socialist Czechoslovakia may, therefore, be the first step not only to critically reflect the development and functioning of secondary vocational education in the period of socialism but also the first step in understanding the development of this type of schools during the transformation period, i. e. after 1989. The goal of this contribution is to introduce fundamental transformations of secondary vocational education in socialist Czechoslovakia. The authors follow the transformation of secondary vocational education against the background of important historical milestones of the development of Czechoslovak society. In this context, they ask, for example, how and why was vocational secondary education formed after 1948, when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia gained all political and administrative power. Furthermore, how did this area of education change after a brief period of general political easing in the Eastern Bloc after the criticism of Stalin's government by Nikita Khrushchev during the 1960s, especially during the so-called Prague Spring? The last question authors attempt to answer in this paper is how did secondary vocational education change during the so-called normalization period? Thus, in the period of re-consolidation of the communist regime, which occurred after the invasion of Warsaw Pact troops and lasted until 1989. The contribution is a partial result of a larger project called Secondary Technical School in Socialist Czechoslovakia from the History of Everyday Life Point of View. Oral History Interviews with Teachers (Czech Science Foundation, no. 19-24776S).

The key issue of the historical-pedagogical research on socialist education in Czechoslovakia is the availability of sources of knowledge of the past. This may represent a certain risk in the context of studying the relatively recent past (so-called contemporary history). In this context, Le Goff (1983) draws attention for example to the impossibility of full use of the traditional historical research methods and traditional historical sources of information because of the possible momentary unavailability of archival sources. The opinion of this historian is totally up to date. The research of Zounek, et al. (2017; 2018) showed that the availability of archival documents in the area of education for the period of 1948–1989 is partially limited. The reason is not the absence of these sources, but the state of their processing, or better not processing, in individual archives, and therefore their uncertain accessibility to the public. Modern historiography, however, offers another way of studying contemporary history. This is in particular represented by a historiographic approach, so-called history of everyday life. Everyday life in this sense can then be understood as a very wide range of activities of ordinary people. One of the methods of approaching the history of everyday life is the oral history. Through an interview with a witness, oral history not only provides information about their life, profession, opinions, etc., but it also allows gaining knowledge of the past, which the witness experienced and which is the topic of the research. It is obvious that this type of knowledge is different from the knowledge provided by the traditional methods and sources used in historical research. Oral history is closely related to the memory of the individual, or to the story, which is narrated based on the memories of the interviewee. The authors use traditional historical sources as well as oral history interviews they conducted in 2019–2020. In this context, they use data obtained from the analysis of contemporary school legislation and contemporary pedagogical journals (e.g. Odborná škola, Nová škola, etc.) and archival sources obtained from the National Archives in Prague and the Brno City Archives. Furthermore, this paper is based on 23 oral history interviews conducted with a total of 13 teachers who worked at secondary technical schools in the period of socialist Czechoslovakia. For analysis of the interview we used open coding technique and condensation process which is described (e.g. Flick, 2006; Vaněk & Mücke, 2015).

The research results represent the first step towards a deeper understanding of the development and form of secondary vocational education in socialist Czechoslovakia and of the everyday life of secondary technical schools and their teachers. They can contribute not only to understanding the changes that occurred after 1989 in the period of transformation in Czechoslovakia but also to the current international debate on the formation of education in post-socialist countries during the 20th and 21st century, the daily life of schools and the life and profession of teachers in totalitarian regimes. In particular, the results of our research show the manifestations and impacts of the narrow and at the same time uncritical orientation of socialist Czechoslovakia towards the Soviet Union during the 1950s. In the field of vocational education, significant changes were made not only in connection with the effort to imitate the educational system of the Soviet Union but also in the reorientation of the Czechoslovak economy from traditional consumer industry to heavy industry. As the results further show, during the 1960s, due to the partial political loosening in the whole Eastern bloc, there was a greater emphasis on the real needs of Czechoslovak society. This manifested in and impacted both the field of vocational education and activities of teachers. At this time, the first significant conceptual elements of the development of secondary technical schools, their content and goals can be observed, even at the expense of the gradual abandonment of Marxism-Leninism ideology. The consolidation of the regime after the Prague Spring in the so-called normalization period (1969–1989) meant, on the one hand, a return of the ideology of Marxism-Leninism to the content and objectives of the vocational training, on the other hand, it kept up some effort to reflect the real economic needs of Czechoslovak society.

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