nd the key to it is education; the key to
educational opportunity, however, is most often political influence,
which also plays a large role in the accessibility to jobs that lead to
higher social status. A stabilizing of the social structure that became
apparent toward the end of the 1960s, although it did not block upward
mobility, would seem to indicate that such social movement will be more
difficult in the future. Children of workers and peasants will not be
denied opportunity for higher education, but it would appear that the
path to opportunity will be easier for children of the party elite and
the professional classes.

To the people, education is important as a means of social advancement;
to the regime, however, the educational system is the prime means
through which it inculcates socialist ideals and trains the
professionals, technicians, and skilled workers needed to run the
country. The first great goal under the Communists was the eradication
of illiteracy, which, according to the government, had been achieved by
1958. A concurrent and continuing goal was the training of skilled
technicians, foremen, and middle-level managers. The country's rapid
industrialization and economic growth caused severe shortages in these
categories and, in the early 1970s, the educational and training
programs still had not met the demands for the upgrading of unskilled
workers.

Modifications of the educational system have been concentrated on the
extension of basic primary education from the four-year program that
existed after World War II to a compulsory ten-year program that is
expected to be fully operative by 1973. Along with the expansion of
curricula and the extension of the time spent in primary grades, the
regime has also reemphasized the importance of ideological and political
indoctrination for the nation's youth. Adult education has also been
stressed by the government in its efforts to raise the overall
educational and skill levels of the entire population.

In the cultural area there has been a shifting of attitudes by the party
overseers that has seemingly left artists and intellectuals confused and
wary about the limits of creativity. In the early communist period
there was slavish imitation of the Soviet doctrine known as Socialist
Realism, which required that all expression reflect the struggle for
social justice and the positive aspects of communist achievements.
After the death of Stalin and particularl