THE MODERN GENERAL EDUCATION IN SERBIA

General education, as an integral part of human education in general, provides a formative basis on which foundations human personality is entirely built. It can be acquired at various institutions and in different situations. However, the most organized forms of general education are obtained in primary schools, specially organized institutions of knowledge, experience and the like. The knowledge necessary to every human being is acquired in these institutions regardless of which specific occupations and avocation (profession) she or he deals with. It is “a passport for life” which allows people to choose what to do for a living, to take on a part of building a common future and to continue learning. It is, as such, a preparation for life and it should be organized in a way that it provides everyone without exceptions an opportunity to express their entire creative potential. The contents of contemporary general education are being changed with the development of human society. They follow changes, in a certain society, caused by the development of industry, engineering, technology, information technology, political structures and others. In order to be able to follow all these changes, we need a broad range of knowledge and skills in a field of human life and work and even beyond that, which we will study in this paper. The subject of interest in this paper will be contemporary primary education, the factors that affect it, the content structure of general education and their ultimate effects.