Croatia

Abstract

The earliest recorded information on educational institutions in Croatia dates from the fourteenth century and refers to village schools associated with churches. In the following centuries, Austrian and Hungarian rulers encouraged reform movements which favorably affected the entire Croatian school system. However, as there was a shortage of qualified Croatian teachers and of officially approved textbooks in the Croatian language, it cannot be considered genuinely Croatian. It was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that the school system developed into a truly Croatian system. Only after the collapse of absolutist rule and the settlement between Croatia and Hungary within the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1868 was Croatian introduced as the language of instruction in educational institutions. The reform movement, initiated by progressive teachers, culminated in the publication of pedagogic writings, the foundation of numerous teachers’ associations, which were assimilated into the umbrella organization of the Croatian Pedagogic-Literary Association in 1871 and the organization of three great teachers’ conferences. The first national law regulating primary education and teacher training (the Act on the Establishment of Primary Schools and Teacher Training Institutions for Primary School Teachers in the Kingdom of Croatia and Slavonia, enacted by the Croatian Parliament on 31 August 1874) prepared the ground for the establishment of primary schools in Croatia. In the same year, the Croatian University at Zagreb commenced teaching and research. Ever since, Croatia has maintained a high level of autonomy with regard to its national school system.