Serbia

Abstract

Conditions for literacy development among the Serbs were created by accepting Christianity and developing the Slavic language in the form of Cyrillic in the ninth century. The earliest Serbian schools originate from the Middle Ages and were established at monasteries which represented the centers of literacy, especially in the period of creating the independent Serbian state (twelfth century). There were schools at courts for noblemen’s children whose teachers were clergy or secular people. In the eighteenth century, the first teacher training school, grammar school, theological school, and other schools were established on the territory of today’s north Serbian province of Vojvodina. The first school constitution was adopted in 1833, and soon after that, curricula were adopted, as well as the general law on schools, within which special laws were published (for primary schools, trade schools, grammar school, and lyceum). Compulsory 6-year education for children of both sexes was envisaged by the 1882 law, but at the end of the nineteenth century only one-fifth of children attended school (Ilić 2005).