Slovenia

Compulsory Attendance Age

9 years of education required, age not specified.

Number of Homeschoolers

There were 333 students formally enrolled in home schools in 2019.

Legal Status

According to the Primary Education Act, parents have the right to homeschool their children. However, they “must, in writing, notify the school at which their child is enrolled about the home schooling no less than three months before the beginning of the school year”.

This notification “must contain the following information: the publicly established curriculum which the child will follow during home schooling, the child’s name and surname, the place where the schooling will be carried out and the name and surname of the person(s) who will be teaching the child”.

The primary school at which the pupil is enrolled is obliged to “keep documentation on the pupil’s home schooling,” and the law prescribes that such pupils “must receive an educational standard at least equivalent to that provided by the mandatory curriculum provided by the public school”. For this reason, “the pupil must sit examinations on the basis of which the achieved standard of knowledge” is assessed. Testing is performed at the end of each school year.

In the first three school years, pupils are tested in knowledge of their native language and mathematics. In the fourth through sixth school years they are tested also in knowledge of a first foreign language. In addition to these subjects, in the seventh through ninth school years pupils are tested in knowledge of history, civic and patriotic education and ethics, physical education, one subject in the field of natural sciences, one in the field of social studies and one in the field of arts. According to the act, “If the pupil fails to achieve the required standard of knowledge for an individual school year, they shall be entitled to revise the examination before the beginning of the following school year. If the pupil again fails to demonstrate the required level of knowledge, they must continue their elementary education in the following school year at a public or private elementary school”.

Children with special needs who are homeschooled using specially adapted curricula or special education and training programs are “tested according to the manner of assessing the achieved standard of knowledge determined by those programmes”.

The primary school at which the pupil is enrolled issues the pupil a homeschooling certificate which is a publicly recognized document.