Children are accepted to first year at the age of 6 or 7, depending on individual development of each child. Until 1990, starting age was set at seven years and schooling lasted ten years for students who were planning to proceed to higher education in Universities. Students who were planning to proceed to technical schools were doing so, as a rule, after the 8th year. The switch from ten to eleven-year term was motivated by continuously increasing load in middle and senior years. In the 1960s, it resulted in a "conversion" of the fourth year from elementary to middle school. Decrease in elementary schooling led to greater disparity between children entering middle school; to compensate for the "missing" fourth year, elementary schooling was extended with a "zero year" for six-year-olds. This move remains a subject of controversy.