A 1958 education law lengthened the country's primary education sequence to eight years and made attendance compulsory for children from seven to fifteen years of age. Between 1945 and 1981, elementary school enrollment rose from 40 percent to 98.6 percent of all children between ages seven and ten and 92 percent of those between eleven and fourteen. In the same period, the number of elementary school teachers increased more than fivefold, and the student-teacher ratio fell from 59:1 to 20:1. Primary education in Yugoslavia's less developed regions improved dramatically, and instruction in the languages of Yugoslavia's ethnic minorities increased. In Kosovo, the number of primary school students rose tenfold between the end of World War II and 1981. In 1986 the student-teacher ratio for primary instruction in the languages of Yugoslavia's ethnic minorities was 18.8:1, better than the Yugoslav average overall.
Data as of December 1990