This paper makes an international comparative study on the implementation of general education in developed countries such as the United States, Japan, Singapore, Britain, Germany and France. The implementation system of general education could be categorized as explicit or implicit. Significant differences of general education in those countries are found from the perspective of historical understanding and implementation system. The main stages of general education in those countries could start as early as secondary education, or last as late as the entire higher education phase. Such differences reveal the complexity and controversy in general education. In China, general education has been affected by many external factors in the course of history, and it is still developing and changing. In view of the experience of these countries studied, it is necessary to expand the research scope of general education from higher education stage to secondary education stage. Higher and secondary education stages should also be considered as a whole when it comes to the mechanism design, implementation phase and curriculum arrangement of general education. In the rapidly changing contemporary world, general education should be introduced earlier and implemented more integrally in order to promote students’ all-round development. Establishing a scientific and comparable evaluation scheme of general education is of great significance to the design and improvement of general education.