ENROLMENT RATE TRENDS IN THE ISTRIA COUNTY ITALIAN PRE-SCHOOL AND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL INSTITUTIONS.

The Istria County is a multicultural, multiethnic and multilingual County in the westernmost part of Croatia. According to the Statute of the Istria County (1994), the Croatian and the Italian languages are in equal official use in the County committee and self-government domains. The members of the autochtonous Italian National Community, the only national community legally recognized in Istria (the other minorities are considered to be ethnic groups) are given the right to use their national lanaguage and script in public and private domains, and the right to be formally educated at all educational levels in their national language (from pre-school, elementary and secondary schools, to the Univeristy level), in order to nurture their national and cultural identity. Therefore, there is a parallel educational system where all the classes (except second and foreign language classes) are taught respectively in Croatian or Italian. Furthermore, the learning of the Italian language, as the language of the social environment, is especially encouraged in the Croatian (majority) schools. The purpose of the research was to investigate the enrolment rate trends of children that attended Italian formal pre-school institutions in the Croatian Istria County during the last decade, and to correlate it with the enrolment rate trends of children that attended Italian elementary schools in the same time period, analysing the annual statistical reports. The results of the research show wide a variation in the enrolment rates trends, therefore confirming a numerical disproportion. The impact of the findings is significant in terms of the Italian educational planning and policy development in the Istria County. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]