After compulsory nine-year basic education, students continue to upper secondary education. 

It normally welcomes generations of students of 15 years of age. Its main objectives:

• Exercising the option to choose.
• Enabling all citizens to acquire general education and first vocational qualification.
• Enabling as many citizens as possible to develop and achieve the highest creativity rate.
• Enabling as many citizens as possible to acquire the highest level of education.
• Promoting lifelong learning, and
• Enabling participation in the European integration processes, as well.

Upper secondary education is divided into:

• general education programmes: general and technical gimnazija and the matura (final examination) course prepare students to continue their educational path in higher education, and
• vocational and technical education programmes: students acquire educational qualifications for entering the labour market, and gain access to tertiary education. 

Upper secondary schools can be single-structure institutions or school centres with several units due to the variety of education programmes or size.

The system of upper secondary education is centralised. The decisions about establishing and funding schools, and adopting and allocating education programmes are taken at the national level. However, schools and teachers are, subject to the relevant rules, autonomous in defining learning content, choosing teaching methods, recruiting and regulating employment relationships, and enrolling new students.

Legal framework:

• Zakon o organizaciji in financiranju vzgoje in izobraževanja provides requirements to pursue the educational activity and governs the management and funding.
• Zakon o gimnazijah governs the education in upper secondary general programmes (general and technical gimnazija).
• Zakon o poklicnem in strokovnem izobraževanju governs the education in short and upper-secondary vocational programmes, upper-secondary technical programmes, and upskilling and training.
• Zakon o vajeništvu provides for apprenticeship as a form of education and training in upper secondary vocational education programmes and programmes of further vocational education in which no less than 50 per cent is work-based practical training.
• Zakon o maturi governs the completion of upper-secondary general education programmes (general and technical gimnazija), that is it specifies the content of general matura and vocational matura, the membership and responsibilities of matura bodies, as well as the procedure and method of the matura examination.
• Zakon o usmerjanju otrok s posebnimi potrebami governs the placement of children and youth with special educational needs in the process of education, and it specifies methods and forms of providing education and training.
• Zakon o posebnih pravicah italijanske in madžarske narodne skupnosti na področju vzgoje in izobraževanja provides for enjoyment of special rights of the autochthonous Italian and Hungarian national communities.
• Zakon o šolski prehrani governs organisation and subsidising school meals.