Education Encyclopedia - StateUniversity.com :: Global Education Reference :: Slovenia - History & Background, Constitutional & Legal Foundations, Educational System—overview, Preprimary & Primary, Secondary Education

Slovenia - Summary


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The education system of the Republic of Slovenia is impressive indeed. While the country continues to undergo the difficult process of transitioning from a socialist, state-controlled economy and centralized government to a more democratically functioning, market-oriented state, the educational infrastructure has been quite thoroughly reformed and modernized since the mid-1990s. As a consequence, Slovenia's education system today resembles the educational systems of Western Europe much more closely than it resembles the education systems in the other formerly socialist states once belonging to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Having separated out earlier from Yugoslavia when its national economy was stronger than that of the other republics, Slovenia nevertheless experienced some of the social upheaval associated with the Balkans wars of the 1990s due to the inflow of significant refugee streams as the region shattered. However, because the war itself directly reached Slovenia for only a very brief period in 1991, Slovenia was spared much of the suffering incurred by the other states in the region and has managed to pull together its newly democratizing and liberalizing political and economic structures more rapidly and with greater success than other countries in the region. Slovenia clearly places a high value on education and has made substantial strides toward improving educational offerings at all levels, from preschool through adult education. The key challenge now appears to be meeting the needs of the newly restructured labor market and the decentralized and privatized economy while the banking system is still in the process of restructuring itself. By developing education and training programs that are more responsive to market needs, Slovenia is bound to find itself on the cusp of educational and economic progress in the Central and Eastern European region during the first few years of the twenty-first century. Continuing to involve itself in educational exchanges and cooperative ventures with the member states of the European Union and with other countries undoubtedly will benefit Slovenia over the next several years as growing numbers of Slovenian citizens and nationals seek to prepare themselves for the increasingly diverse and rich social and economic opportunities available to them, both in Slovenia and abroad.

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—Barbara Lakeberg Dridi

University of Phoenix

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