Education in Themiclesia
Education in Themiclesia is provided both privately and publicly. The scope of education institutions includes primary and preparatory schools, technical and vocational institutes, and universities. Legislation provide that all Themiclesians have the right to enjoy primary education free of tuitions, which introduces pupils to a variety of topics and skills deemed necessary for daily life and gainful employment. The minimum age for leaving full-time education is 18, but students may continue if they have not completed the curriculum or leave earlier with evidence that they have completed it before their 18th year.
The academic establishment has historically enjoyed a great degree of autonomy in Themiclesia. Some attribute the liberal charters of modern universities to this ancient freedom, though the autonomy of higher schools has also impeded the introduction of more unconventional studies under conservatives leadership. Currently, education lies under the portfolio of the (somewhat confusingly named) Secretary of State for the Baronage, but local authorities have authority to localize the curriculum subject to national guidelines. Accredited ethnic minorities like Mengheans and Dayashinese people are serviced by dedicated schools where the diaspora community have greater ability to customize their curricula or by special courses that aid the maintenance of their distinct communities; in the far east, the national curriculum is further altered to conform to local lifestyles and peculiar requirements.
History
Pre-modern period
Literacy and numeracy are thought to be connected to cultic and mercantile needs in protohistoric Themiclesia (ante circa 300 BCE). The earliest formal "schools" (學, n.gruk) served an urban elite's cultic and military needs, with divination and archery being the best-attested forms of training offered; however, philologically, the glyph for "school" contains the grapheme for counting rods, which some take, together with classical texts of Menghean provenance, as evidence of arithmetic training. These n.gruk may not have referred to any specific organization (see below) dedicated to education, but rather the place where such trainings occured, and remains of large public structures have been connected with n.gruk.
With the expansion of a permanent bureaucracy, the office of "schooling households" (學室, n.gruk-stjit) is found in ostraca dating to the 1st century BCE; these are thought to be the royal household's or sacrificial offices' bondservants whose principal task was the training of future administrators. While higher offices of the city-state were reserved to clan leaders powerful through economic organization, employment as a skilled administrator was a key path to advancement for minor families. In the Tsjinh period (256 to 420 CE), at least two schools were known: the Greater School (大學, ladh-n.gruk) and Lesser School (少學, m′jaws-n.gruk), but it is not known what was taught at these places. In the Sungh (421 to 489), a greater number of schools were attested and, unlike their precursors, taught political philosophies and legal knowledge.
The explosion of education in the Sungh period has been a great focus for academics in the modern era. Previously, philosophies (also called "wisdoms"; 德, tek) like these were orally transmitted amongst elite families and regarded as a mystical form of patrimony; a member of the clan was thought to inherit its benefit. It is thought, between the Tsjinh and Sungh, a political revolution had irreparably damaged the oligarchic rule that strengthened major metropolitan clans at the expense of both colonies and unorganized metropolitan families. One hypothesis follows that these philosophies, no longer kept secret, leaked to the urban public, though others argue that many of the new schools of thought were in fact new—probably introduced externally. Yet another theory is that Sungh patriarchs wished to suppress the power of metropolitan clans by undermining their monopoly on knowledge and the reputation attached to it.