The Beginnings of Higher Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

This paper discusses the beginnings of contemporary higher education in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Ottoman period is not discussed as there was not a single secondary school in this region at that time, not to mention a modern college; however, after the Austro-Hungarian government came into power (1878), a modern secodary school system was organized for the first time in history. After the first students graduated from these schools, the Catholic Church founded, firstly, the Vrhbosnia Catholic Faculty of Theology, which opened on September 1,1890 in Travnik. The first lectureres to arrive were professors from Austrian faculties, since Bosnia and Herzegovina had no teaching staff qualified for work at the university level. Thereafter, three additional Catholic philosophical-theological institutes of higher education were founded in Bosnia and Herzegovina: two founded by the Franciscans, one in Sarajevo and one Mostar, and one by the Trappists near Banja Luka. The Eastern Orthodox organized their institute of higher education in Reljevo, near Sarajevo, while the Muslims obtained their first school in 1935.