School Reforms and Literacy in Slovenia since the Teresian Period

The article presents the impact of the three reforms of elementary education on literacy in the Slovenian territory. In the first period, the number of literate people cannot be determined precisely, as no statistical data is available and the assessments of individuals were more the result of their own opinions. The increase in literacy fell short of expectations, as around a third of the school-age generation of children attended school. The next school reform in 1869 brought a step towards general literacy, which is more precisely evidenced by statistical data and maps showing that by the First World War the vast majority of young people had already mastered reading and writing and that there were more illiterate people in some more remote parts of Slovenian territory and among the older generation. The primary school reform of the 1950s there­in increased literacy, but the reform planners were already focusing more on the transition from elementary school to secondary school.