Polytechnical education was one of the defining features of the GDR education system after 1959. It describes a conception of schooling and teaching that was closely linked to the development of Marxist-Leninist theory and politics. Marx had already called for a stronger integration of school with labour and advocated multifaceted (’poly’) preparation for all areas of the working world ('-technical'). Not only was the question of ownership to be addressed, but the knowledge-based mastery of the means of production should also be made possible. In the Soviet Union, approaches to such teaching were tried out, especially after Stalin's death in 1953.

The relationship to subject structure inherited from the concept of modern school remained a main challenge for the introduction of polytechnical education in the GDR.

In terms of its programme, polytechnics did not just claim to be a school subject. Rather, polytechnics was to be made the principle of the school curriculum as a whole and thus touched on questions of work socialisation and value formation, and later also the formation of the socialist personality (see also comprehensively developed socialist personality). The polytechnical idea also formed the basis for the introduction of the polytechnical secondary school as a compulsory, unified institution covering schooling of primary and secondary levels in 1965.