Învăţământul de limbă germană din Banat până la începutul perioadei dualiste / The education system in German language in Banat until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867
Authors: Glăvan Ciprian 
Published: March 2022

" e fi rst schools in German language were founded in Banat shortly after the conquest of the region by the Habsburg Empire. In 1730 there were already about 30 schools in Banat. In the elementary schools, the teacher was elected by the local community and in the early period he had also the responsibilities of an organist and notary of the commune. Together with the priest and the mayor, they formed the elite of the village. The first secondary school, a secondary school with teaching in Latin, was founded by the Jesuit Order on November 6th, 1725. At its peak it had six classes, three teachers and the number of students varied between 50 and 70. The austro-ottoman war of 1737–1739 led to the destruction of many villages colonized by germans in the south of Banat and affected the school system. The main purpose of the German Catholic elementary schools was education in the spirit of religion by teaching reading, writing and church music. After the end of the war and the colonization during the reign of Queen Maria Theresa, the number of village schools in German language grew rapidly. A new stage in the history of German education in Banat was marked by the introduction in the province of a new school reform. “Die allgemeine Schulordnung für die deutschen Normal-, Haupt- und Trivialschulen” was sanctioned by the Queen on December 4, 1774. One of the fi rst measures of the administration of the province was the foundation of a Normalschule and of a school board to which all schools of the province were subordinated. " e teachers showed a lot of interest in the new method of teaching, so that at the end of 1777, the school board found that almost all teachers of German schools participated in courses to get used to the new teaching methods. " e progresses made in this respect on the territory of the military border were even faster as the Aulic War Council sent several teachers for training in the Normalschule in Vienna. In 1787, there were 30 schools with 37 teachers and 1407 students in this territory. Despite some shortcomings, this school reform led to undeniable progress, tripling the number of schools between 1766 and 1801. With the incorporation of Banat in Hungary in 1779, the place of the “Allgemeine Schulordnung…” was taken by “Ratio Educationis”, introduced in Hungary in 1777. In the first half of the XIX-th century the German language schools suffered a slight decline, especially as the attempts to gradually impose Hungarian language in public life and school multiplied. After the revolution of 1848–1849 and the organization of the new province “Serbische Woiwodschaft und Temeser Banat”, which had its center in Timisoara and was directly subordinated to the central authority in Vienna, the ministry introduced German as language of instruction in secondary schools. In elementary schools, the teaching language corresponded to the native language of the majority of the students. This favorable development of education in Banat, initiated after the revolution of 1848–1849, was maintained after the reincorporation of Banat in Hungary in 1860, especially as until the Austro-Hungarian Compromise there was no pressure from the authorities to transform German language schools into community schools.