The Soviet general secondary school provides youth with a wide range of knowledge and educates them in the spirit of communist consciousness and high moral standards. Research to improve labor training is guided by six principal premises of methodology: (1) Marxist-Leninist theory on the all-round and harmonious development of personality, (2) Marxist-Leninist theory on labor and its role in human life, (3) Marxist-Leninist theory on polytechnical education and its combination with productive labor, (4) dialectical nature of the interconnection of schooling with life and communist construction practice, and (6) complex approach to education of students to make them ready for everyday life activities. Involving youth in productive labor is seen as socially and pedagogically expedient. The purposes of labor training are to broaden students' polytechnical outlook, present and form knowledge and labor skills through practical activities, and foster a creative attitude toward labor, labor aesthetics, high moral qualities, respect for workers, and interests for various occupations. (Program content at various levels is described.) Efforts are directed at school leavers to stimulate them to seek education and a productive occupation. (A foreword discusses the socioeconomic and cultural context of educational development in the Europe region.) (YLB)