Students in pre-tertiary education and those who completed education at these levels, Slovenia, school years 2020/2021 and 2019/2020

For some years now generations of children entering basic schools have been larger each year and smaller generations born 15 years ago have been starting upper secondary education. The number of basic school pupils is therefore increasing, while the number of upper secondary school students and tertiary education students has been decreasing up until the previous academic year. In 2020/21, 1.5% more upper secondary school students and almost 8% more tertiary education students were enrolled. 



Pre-school education

• In the school year 2020/21, 86,193 children were enrolled in kindergartens, which is 82.5% of all children aged between 1 and 5 years. The number of children enrolled in kindergartens in 2020/21 was 1.7% lower than in the previous school year. In the last ten years, the number of children enrolled in kindergartens increased by 13.5% (from 75,972 in the school year 2010/11 to 86,193 in the school year 2020/21). Pre-school education was provided by 975 kindergartens and their units, 861 of them public and 114 private. A large majority of children (94.5%) were attending public kindergartens. 
• The European strategic goal for education and training 2020 is 95% inclusion of children aged 4–5 in pre-school education. Slovenia has not yet achieved that goal but is coming closer each year. 39,051 children aged 4 and 5 years were enrolled in pre-school education, which is 93.7% of all children of that age and 4 percentage points more than ten years ago. The enrolment rate of the youngest (1 and 2 years of age) increased as well from a half of the population in 2010/11 to 67% in 2020/21.

Basic education 

• At the beginning of the school year 2020/21, 193,158 children were enrolled in basic school program with regular and adapted curriculum, i.e. 3,000 more than in the previous year. The number of children in basic education has been growing since 2010/11, when it was the smallest in independent Slovenia (161,046). Smaller generations born 15 years ago are leaving for upper secondary schools and larger generations are staying. The generations of first-graders are larger (this year 21,500) than the generations of ninth-graders (this year 19,181).
• Children in Slovenia enter basic education at 6 years of age. However, lately more and more children enter at the age of 7. Five years ago there were 6% 7-year-olds among first graders. In 2020/21, the share was 12.5%.

• Compulsory basic education was carried out by 773 basic schools and their subsidiaries and by 48 basic schools with adapted curriculum and institutions for children with special education needs. In the largest school, 1,127 pupils were attending classes, in the largest school branch 407 and in the smallest branch only 3.
• In the school year 2020/21, the average class had 19.2 pupils. This number varies depending on the organizational form of schools. In independent and central basic schools, there were on average 20.8 pupils per class, and in subsidiary schools only 11.0 pupils per class. The average number of children per class also varies among statistical regions. It was the lowest in basic schools in the Pomurska (16.0) and Koroška (16.3) statistical regions and the highest in the Osrednjeslovenska statistical region (21.6).
• In regular and adapted basic education programmes, there were 15,502 children with special needs. Most of them (84%) were included in regular programmes with adapted implementation and additional professional assistance and represented 6.8% of all pupils in regular basic education programmes.
• In the school year 2019/20, basic education was successfully completed by 18,089 pupils, 274 of them in basic schools with adapted curriculum.

Upper secondary education

• In the school year 2020/21, 73,854 students were enrolled in upper secondary education (72,738 in the previous school year) carried out by 144 public upper secondary schools, 6 private upper secondary schools and 5 institutions for special needs children. We expect the number of pupils to increase again in the coming years, as the number of pupils in basic education has been rising since the 2011/12 school year.
• Among 20,144 first-year students, 19,513 were new entrants, entering upper secondary education for the first time. Others were either repeaters or have changed their study programme.
• 90.9% of all young people between 15 and 18 years of age were enrolled in upper secondary education, 92.6% if we include those 15–18-year-olds who were enrolled as adults. 
• In upper secondary general programmes 35% of all upper secondary students were enrolled, 62% of them girls. 47% of all students were enrolled in technical programmes (46% of them girls). In vocational education 18% of all upper secondary students were enrolled, 30% of them girls. 

• Men tend to choose technical and vocational programmes more often than women. Three out of four (74%) male students are enrolled in these programmes, mostly in the technical fields (43% of all male students) and computing (8%). On the other hand, 56% of female students are enrolled in technical and vocational programmes, mostly in the fields of health (12% of all female students), personal services (12%) and business and administration (10%).

• In the school year 2019/20, upper secondary education was successfully completed by 17,488 students. 5,805 students (33%) attained a general upper secondary education, 7,917 (45%) an upper secondary technical, 3,344 (19%) an upper secondary vocational and 422 (2%) a short upper secondary vocational education. 

Adult education

• In the school year 2019/20, 1,113 adults took lessons in basic school programme for adults. Two out of three participants were men, more than a third of whom younger than 18 years of age.
• Upper secondary education programmes for adults were attended by 16,276  participants. 75% of participants were younger than 25 years. 4% of participants wished to receive a general upper secondary education, 60% of adults were enrolled in technical programmes and 36% in vocational upper secondary programmes. The majority of participants attended programmes in the field of business and administration.