Basic education for youth and adults, Slovenia, the end of school year 2014/15 and the begining 2015/16

Number of children in basic education continues to grow

172,013 children were enrolled in basic education at the beginning of the 2015/16 school year, which is 1.7% more than in the previous school year. The number of children in basic education has been growing since the 2011/12 school year. This year, too, had one of the most numerous classes of first-graders (21,632).

170,067 children were enrolled in basic school program with regular curriculum and 1,946 children were enrolled in basic school program with adapted curriculum. Regular curriculum was carried out by 777 basic schools and their branches, while adapted curriculum was carried out by 57 basic schools and their branches.

At the end of the 2014/15 school year, basic education was successfully completed by almost 18,000 pupils

At the end of the 2014/15 school year, education in basic schools with regular curriculum was successfully completed by 17,574 pupils, in basic schools with adapted curriculum by 210 pupils and in basic schools for adults by 174 participants. 

At the end of the school year 3.6% of all pupils in the final grade had an improvement exam in one or more subjects, and 85% of them successfully improved negative marks. Among children who completed their education at the end of the 2014/15 school year 1.5% completed 9-year basic school and left school without obtaining a certificate of completion of basic school.

Teaching is still mostly done by women

At the end of the 2014/15 school year there were 16,014 teaching staff in basic schools and basic schools with adapted curriculum. Teaching is still mostly done by women (88%). The share of women teachers has been slowly increasing in the last 10 years.
The number of pupils per teacher is also increasing. In the 2010/11 school year one teacher taught 12.2 pupils, and in the 2014/15 school year 12.8. The calculation is based on the recalculated number of teaching staff (without teachers in daily extension) and pupils to full-time equivalent.

On average 19.8 pupils per class

The average class had 19.8 pupils, which is a little more than in the previous school year. This number varies depending on the organizational form of schools. In independent and central basic schools there were on average 20.6 pupils per class, and in subsidiary schools only 14.2 pupils per class. The average number of children per class also varies among statistical regions. The lowest average number of children per class was recorded in basic schools in the Pomurska region (17.2) and the highest in the Osrednjeslovenska statistical region (21.5).

Majority of children are learning English

A vast majority of children are learning English as their first foreign language (97%). German is learned as a first foreign language by only 3% of the students. The majority of children are learning German as a second foreign language (92%), followed by English, Italian, and French.