Slovenia

Partners situated in Slovenia

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Slovenia in a nutshell

Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: Republika Slovenija), is a country in southern Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north. The capital of Slovenia is Ljubljana.

At various points in Slovenia's history, the country has been part of many other countries and empires.

The Slovenian head of state is the president, who is elected by popular vote every five years. The executive branch is headed by the prime minister and the council of ministers or cabinet, who are elected by the National Assembly.

The bicameral Parliament of Slovenia consists of the National Assembly (Državni zbor), and the National Council (Državni svet). The National Assembly has 90 members, 88 of which are elected by all the citizens in a system of proportional representation, while two are elected by the indigenous Hungarian and Italian minorities. Elections take place every four years. The National Assembly is the supreme representative and legislative institution, exercising legislative and electoral powers as well as control over the Executive and the Judiciary. The National Council has 40 members, appointed to represent social, economic, professional and local interest groups. Among its best-known powers is the authority of the "postponing veto" - it can demand that the Parliament re-discusses a certain piece of legislation (a mechanism similar to that in the UK).

The traditional regions of Slovenia are based on the former four Habsburg crown lands (Carniola, Carinthia, Styria, and the Littoral) and are as follows:

• Upper Carniola (Gorenjska)
• Lower Styria (Štajerska)
• Prekmurje (Prekmurje)
• Carinthia (Koroška)
• Inner Carniola (Notranjska)
• Lower Carniola (Dolenjska)
• Goriška (Goriška)
• Slovenian Istria (Slovenska Istra)

Goriška and Slovenian Istria together are known as the Littoral region (Slovene: Primorska).

White Carniola (Slovene: Bela krajina), otherwise part of Lower Carniola, is considered a separate region of Slovenia, as are Zasavje and Posavje, the former being a part of Upper Carniola, Lower Carniola and Styria; and the latter part of Lower Carniola and Styria.

Confusingly, there are also statistical regions which are different. Finally, the government is preparing a plan for new administrative regions, between 12 and 14 in number.

Slovenia is divided into 210 local municipalities, eleven of which have urban status.

Slovenia is the economic front-runner of the countries that joined the European Union in 2004 and was the first new member which adopted the euro on 1 January 2007. It has a high-income developed economy which enjoys the second highest (after Cyprus) GDP per capita ($28,010 = estimate for 2008) of the new EU countries which is 93% of the EU average.

Despite economic success, Slovenia faces some challenges. Big portions of the economy remains in state hands and foreign direct investment (FDI) in Slovenia is one of the lowest in the EU per capita. Taxes are relatively high, the labour market is seen as inflexible, and industries are losing sales to China, India, and elsewhere. During the 2000s, privatizations were seen in the banking, telecommunications, and public utility sectors. Restrictions on foreign investment are being dismantled, and foreign direct investment (FDI) is expected to increase.

The population of Slovenia is just over 2 million (estimated 2,009,245 as of July 2007). Slovenia's main ethnic group is Slovene (83%). Nationalities from the former Yugoslavia (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Montenegrin) form 5.3%, and the Hungarian, Albanian, Roma, Italian and other minorities form 2.8% of the population. Ethnic affiliation of 8.9% was either undeclared or unknown.

The official language is Slovene, which is a member of the South Slavic language group. Hungarian and Italian enjoy the status of official languages in the ethnically mixed regions along the Hungarian and Italian borders.

By religion, Slovenes are traditionally largely Roman Catholic (57.8% according to the 2002 Census).

Slovenia education system

The Slovenian education system consists of:

1. pre-school education
2. basic education (single structure of primary and lower secondary education)
3. upper) secondary education: vocational and technical education, secondary general education
4. higher vocational education
5. higher education

Thee are also some specific parts of the system such as adult education, music and dance education, special needs education and programmes in ethnically and linguistically mixed areas.

Currently there are three public universities in Slovenia:

• University of Ljubljana
• University of Maribor
• University of Primorska

In addition, there is the private University of Nova Gorica.

The Programme for International Student Assessment, coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks Slovenia's education as the 12th best in the world, being significantly higher than the OECD average.

Schools

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Slovenia)

Primary school

Children first enter primary schooling at about age 6 and finish at about age 14. Each group of children born in the same year forms one grade or class in primary school which takes nine years or grades. Each year is divided in three semesters and each of them is around three months long. Once or twice per term, children have holidays: Autumn, Christmas, winter and May first holidays; each holiday is approximately one week long. In summer, school ends on 24 June (except in the last ninth grade, where it ends one week earlier), followed by a holiday of more than two months. The next school year starts on 1 September.

1st period

1st Period is a beginning of schooling for every child. From first to forth grade children stay in one classroom and have one class or form teacher who teaches them all subjects except PE, music, and art. In the beginning of first year there is always one special pedagogue in classroom and he or she helps the master teacher to lead little ones in the new system. They start with reading, writing and counting. In second grade they begin to learn more and more stuffs. They have native language (Slovenian, Hungarian or Italian language), mathematics, natural and sociology science, music, physical education and art. In forth grade they begin to learn their first foreign language, which is usually English. They have only descriptive marks and the real marks come in around second grade (this is school dependent: in some places real marks come in not earlier than in fourth grade).

2nd period

The 2nd Period of primary schooling starts in fifth grade when children begin switching classrooms. They still have a master teacher, which is never the same as in past four years. He or she usually teaches them one or two subjects and all others are taught by different specialized teachers. Main subjects which they need to attend are maths, native language, first foreign language, PE, music and art. Later they start physics, chemistry, geography, history, biology, technics and housekeeping. In seventh grade they must choose three new subjects from around 40 subjects which are offered (usually different foreign languages, astronomy, fine art, computer science etc.).

State tests

On the end of the third, sixth and ninth grade pupil must write special state tests in maths, native language and first foreign language (except in last year the school minister defines the last one) . Those exams are then checked and first two do not mean anything (they only measure the average or how smart children really are). But exam in ninth grade must be written at the best because they count your end points and add up them with points that you reached in the end of last year in all subjects that you attended to. That is very important for pupils because then they continue with higher school. And if they have not achieved so much points as their wanted school has define they will not be accept.

Marks and grades

In primary school marks start with 1 (insufficient) and is the only not failure mark. The second one is 2 (sufficient), next is 3 (good), then 4 (very good) and the best is 5 (excellent). For first positive mark you need to achieve little more than 50 percent, next range is around 65 percent, then 75 and for the best mark you need to know 90 percent of everything.

The National Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia (ZRSŠ)

The National Education Institute of the Republic of Slovenia (Zavod Republike Slovenije za Šolstvo - ZRSŠ) is the main public organisation in Slovenia which encourages development in the field of education in Slovenia up to pre-university - covering all kindergartens, elementary schools, secondary schools, music schools, and student boarding schools. It appears to have some similarity with Becta in the UK.

Secondary school

No information on the relevant Wikipedia page.

References

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