НЕУСПЕХ ОСНОВНОШКОЛСКОГ СИСТЕМА У СРБИЈИ ЗА ВРЕМЕ КРАЉЕВИНЕ ЈУГОСЛАВИЈЕ
Failure of the Elementary School System in Serbia in the Time of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia

Summary/Abstract: The elementary school in Serbia in the time of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was not sufficiently developed. Compulsory elementary education, as statutorily defined, was far from being realized. School network and its facilities were not, even in the eve of the World War II, sufficient to embrace all children of a school age. Hence, in the school year of 1922/23 in the North Serbia as many as 66.78 % eligible children were not enrolled in the first class. In the school 1929/30 year in the Morava Banate (banovina) 48 % eligible children were not enrolled into the first class as well. Owing to the modest school capacity, as well as to the poorly perceived importance of elementary education by the masses, many of the enrolled children did not attend school. In the last peacetime school year 27.29% and 27.51% elementary-school pupils did not attend their classes in North Serbia and in the Old Serbia respectively. Due to the excessive absence from school, the rate of elementary-school pupils passing was low as well. It amounted 67.80% and 61.96% in the North Serbia and in the Old Serbia respectively in the school year of 1939/40. For instance, in the North Serbia there were 7.06 successful elementary school pupils (4.61 schoolboys and 2.45 schoolgirls) per 100 citizens only in the school year of 1939/40, while in the Old Serbia, with regard to considerably higher population growth, the number of successful pupils was even lower. Seeing that four-year elementary school did not strike root, the extended education had not much chance to be successful. Out of all passed elementaryschool pupils in the late 1939/40 school year, only 1,184 (2.57%) new students were enrolled in the higher national school in the North Serbia outside Belgrade, while in the Old Serbia there were not any higher schools whatsoever. Lack of strong elementary school foundations in Serbia resulted in high population illiteracy. In 1931, it amounted 55.09% and as high as 83.26% in the North Serbia and in the Old Serbia respectively.

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