← Back to homeII. gimnazija Maribor
Maribor, Slovenia · est. 1949 · State
Illustration · Maribor
The school grew out of Maribor's second boys' city school, opened in 1937, became a full gimnazija in 1949 and names that year as the year of its founding; it moved into its present building on Trg Miloša Zidanška in 1952. The International Baccalaureate Diploma has been run here since 1990, longer than anywhere else in Slovenia: almost nine hundred people have completed the programme, for the last five years the school names an average score of forty out of forty-five, and in the 2025 cohort it was 38.6, 98 per cent received the diploma and one female graduate scored the full 45 points. The intake for the programme is forty places a year, thirty per cent of the final score comes from the entrance test, whose papers and solutions for the past four years the school posts in advance, and of the forty admitted for 2025/26 fourteen are foreign. The mother tongue is named in the school's English documents without a list of languages, a school leaving certificate from a school abroad is expressly provided for and the school knows what to do with it, a pupil from outside Europe is eligible if at least one of the parents pays taxes in Slovenia, and those whose first language is not Slovene are taught mother tongue lessons in small groups four to five hours a week; at the same time, in its own annual report the school quotes the general ministry condition, where the mother tongue is named as Slovene, Italian or Hungarian, and states that two candidates were not admitted under it. Tuition is free, the school does not take self-funded candidates, but it puts the accompanying costs over the two years at roughly 2 000 euros, the boarding house at about 350 euros a month, and a tutor for a language A that is not on the ready-made list is paid for by the family. Across the whole gimnazija there are more than eight hundred pupils in three programmes, the school counts around eighty extracurricular activities and more than ninety per cent of its pupils take part in them, and its leavers have gone on to Harvard, Cornell, MIT, Oxford, Edinburgh, NYU Abu Dhabi, Bocconi and to universities in the Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland and Germany.
Key facts
Programmes
IB · DP · German language diploma · National programme
Languages of instruction
Slovene, English
Languages taught
Serbian, Macedonian, Bosnian, Ukrainian, German, French
About the fees Tuition on the International Baccalaureate programme is free for everyone who gets through the competition, and the school does not accept self-funded candidates at all ("Self-funded candidates are not accepted") - it does not sell places for money. The paying is for other things. The accompanying costs of the programme - textbooks, the Kognity platform, Freshmen Week, the graduation excursion and off-site activities - the school puts at roughly 2 000 euros over two years and allows them to be paid in instalments. For pupils from out of town the boarding house costs about 350 euros a month, accommodation, supervision and meals together, and the school does not permit living independently in private accommodation: only a boarding house with supervision, either Dijaški dom Drava or Dijaški dom Lizike Jančar. If a pupil's mother tongue is not on the ready-made list, its literature is taught as a self-taught course with a tutor, and the state does not fund that cost, so the family pays the tutor. The school names no registration fee.
Admissions Admission to the International Baccalaureate programme is open and competitive: forty places a year. Who may apply: "Students from Slovenia, other EU countries, or countries that have signed a bilateral educational agreement with Slovenia (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Kosovo) are eligible to apply. Students from other countries may also apply provided that at least one of their parents pays taxes in Slovenia". Entry conditions: "Age between 16 and 17 years", the second year of a four-year secondary school completed in 2025/26 with an overall grade of no less than "very good", a grade of no less than "very good" in "Mother tongue, English, and Mathematics" and active participation in culture, sport and olympiads. Documents: the online application printed out and signed, a copy of the first-year certificate and "an official English transcript (only if the document was not issued in Slovenia)", the second-year record with the same translation, the completed forms on extracurricular activities (no more than 5 lessons a week for one activity and no more than 20 for all of them), copies of awards for 2024/25 and 2025/26 - these require no official translation, "certificates may be translated by the student" - and a copy of a passport or identity card. The deadline is 13 March 2026, by registered post marked "IB2026". Selection is by weightings: school grades 20 per cent, extracurricular activities 10, competitions 10, teachers' references 10, the entrance test result 30, the interview 20. Tests and interviews are in April and the decision comes in May; the best forty are admitted, and the candidates in 41st, 42nd and 43rd place go onto the waiting list with their number stated. The panel is the headteacher, the programme coordinator and three teachers. The school discloses last year's competition: 62 complete applications for 40 places, a cut-off score of 63.92 out of 100 and a best candidate on 92.14; 40 were admitted, 24 of them the school's own, 26 Slovene pupils and 14 foreign - eight Montenegrins, three North Macedonian girls, two Serbs and one Ukrainian girl. Two candidates were not admitted for failing the general condition, which the school quotes in the same report from the ministry's call: "najmanj prav dober učni uspeh v 2. letniku srednje šole (štiriletni program) iz predmetov slovenščina ali italijanščina ali madžarščina kot materni jezik, angleščina in matematika". That is, the English admission page and the English admission policy of the same school say simply "Mother tongue", while its own annual report names Slovene, Italian or Hungarian. Both wordings are given as they stand. Slovene entrants receive their pack of documents at a meeting in June, foreign entrants at a meeting at the end of August. For foreign applicants the school separately holds a presentation of the programme in English by video link. Admission to the first year of the gimnazija runs separately: "Sprejem na II. gimnazijo je možen s končano devetletno osnovno šolo", 168 places a year on the general gimnazija; in 2025/26 there was no cap on admission and everyone who met the conditions was taken - 176 on the general gimnazija and 25 in the sports stream.
Stages and year groups Grades Gimnazija Years 1-4 (third and fourth year - IB DP in two classes, A and B); the first-year forms run from 1.A to 1.F plus the sports form 1.Š. Four years of gimnazija in three programmes: the general gimnazija, the gimnazija with sports classes and the International Baccalaureate. The International Baccalaureate programme occupies the last two years and runs as two parallel classes in each intake - MM1 A and MM1 B, then MM2 A and MM2 B. In the general gimnazija lessons other than the foreign languages are in Slovene, and foreign pupils receive extra hours of Slovene; the International Baccalaureate programme is entirely in English. Number of places: 168 places a year on the general gimnazija, 40 places a year on the International Baccalaureate. Group 1 languages of the diploma: In group 1 for 2025/26 the school runs Slovene A: literature at higher level, Serbian A at both levels, Macedonian and Bosnian A at standard level, Ukrainian A as a self-taught course and English A: language and literature; music in group 6 did not fill this year.
Address Trg Miloša Zidanška 1, 2000 Maribor
Accreditations and programmes verified against official registries
IB · DP · authorised programmeZfA · authorised programmeschool is in an official registryconfirmed by a school document, by membership or by taking part in a networkclaimed by the school, no confirmation, not counted in the scoreGuide to all organisations → What stands behind each entry
IBInternational Baccalaureate
A Swiss non-profit, working since 1968. Its programmes are among the most widely recognised school programmes in the world. Authorisation is granted stage by stage, so a school with the final stage does not necessarily run the younger ones; which stages this school holds is set out in the line below.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it. At this school: DP (ages 16-19). DP is the final stage, ages 16 to 19: six subjects plus a compulsory core of theory of knowledge, an extended essay and CAS. The diploma is accepted by universities all over the world, and in a number of countries it counts for admission on the same footing as the local leaving certificate.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →ZfACentral Agency for German Schools Abroad
A German federal agency. It recognises a school as a German school abroad, funds it and grants the right to award the German leaving certificate. Quality is examined by a state inspection about once every six years, and schools that pass receive the mark of an excellent German school abroad.
What the badge means for this school. The school is allowed to run this programme and to award its certificate. This is a confirmation of the programme, not a judgement on the school as a whole. The entry stands in the organisation's public register - anyone can check it.
Register to check for yourself, and the full guide →German language diploma
The Deutsches Sprachdiplom, the German language diploma. The federal agency ZfA grants a school the right to prepare pupils for this examination and to sit it; the conference of state education ministers oversees the work, and Germany signs the diploma. There are two levels: DSD I is B1, DSD II is C1, and the latter admits a holder to a German university without a further language examination.
What this means for this school. This is the right to run one language examination, not a school programme: the other subjects follow the national curriculum of the school's own country, and no inspection of the school as a whole stands behind the DSD. It does not lead to a German leaving certificate; that is awarded only by recognised German schools abroad, which hold a different recognition from the same agency.
National programme
The state school programme of the country the school stands in: it is set by that country's ministry of education, which also licenses the school and awards the leaving certificate. That certificate is used for entry to local universities, and abroad it is matched to the local one.
What this means for this school. This entry does not count towards the score, and that is deliberate. Every lawful school in a country works to the national programme, so on its own it tells one school apart from no other - unlike the French, German or Russian programmes, which are carried abroad and confirmed by the register of their organisation. We show it because a parent needs to know what programme their child is taught and what certificate the child will get. Counting it would lift the whole ranking at once and still tell nobody apart.
Exams and destinations from the school's official website
Went on to university
60% of leavers
Average IB score
38.6 (world average 30.88)
Exam results The school publishes a table covering twelve years. In 2025 there were forty leavers from the programme, 98 per cent received the diploma, the average score was 38.6 out of 45, one graduate had the full 45 points and seventeen were above forty. The average score over the last five years the school names as forty out of forty-five, and the best year in the table is 2021 with 42 points. In its own annual report for that same year, 2025, the figures are slightly different: 38 people sat the examinations, 15 of them foreign, 37 received the diploma, one received no grades in three subjects because of a breach of academic honesty, the average score was 38.59 - 39.00 for the Slovene pupils and 37.93 for the foreign ones - and there were seventeen gold graduates. Both versions are given as they stand. Of the 186 fourth-year leavers, 182 sat the Slovene general matura in 2025 and 181 passed, that is 99.4 per cent; for the autumn session the school names the success of its own leavers as one hundred per cent. Over the year pupils took part in 27 subject competitions and won 49 gold and 83 silver awards.
Where leavers go: Harvard University · Cornell University · Massachusetts Institute of Technology · New York University Abu Dhabi · University of Oxford · University of Edinburgh · Università Bocconi · University of Padua · universities in Rome · universities in the Netherlands · universities in Scotland · universities in Ireland and others, 16 universities in the school's list in all
Facilities from the school's official website
·Swimming poolnot stated on the website
·Sports hallnot stated on the website
·Laboratoriesnot stated on the website
✓Theatre or assembly hallThe amphitheatre - a hall in the first-floor foyer, completed in 1975 to a design by the architect Branko Kocmut; in the school's foyers stand the relief "Partizansko Pohorje" and other works by Vlasta Zorko.
✓LibraryA library and reading room in the ground-floor foyer, open from 7.00 to 15.00; library and information lessons are held in the library and the school textbook fund operates there.
✓CateringIts own dining hall, where lunches are served from 7.00 to 14.00.
·School transportnot stated on the website
·Boardingnot stated on the website
Also on site: Sports ground or field
Campus: One building on Trg Miloša Zidanška 1, begun in 1939 and finished in 1952; the classroom system was arranged from 1965 onwards. The school keeps no separate page listing its rooms, and what it has is known from its history, the school handbook and the school rules; there is a 360-degree virtual tour. Lockers: On enrolment every pupil is given a locker in the changing room with a code, for which they are financially responsible. Equipment: For 2025/26 the school plans to improve its educational technology and computer equipment as far as its finances allow.
Clubs and activities (78): English Student Theatre · Drama, Gnosis · Drama, Druga scena · School drama school · Youth choir · Drug' orkester · School newspaper Borec · Literature workshop · Literary school · School yearbook · Art workshop · Architectural drawing course · Second photography club · Video making · Film school · Rhetoric school · Debating club · Model United Nations DrugaMUN · Youth Parliament of the Alpine Convention · European Parliament Ambassador School · Astronomy · Mathematics groups · Student research projects · Eco group · English Club · French club · Spanish · Optional foreign language courses · English reading badge · German reading badge · French reading badge · Spanish reading badge · Druga bere · Neuro-linguistic programming · Biti dovolj dober · Relaxation with yoga · Chess · Mountaineering · Tigrice in borci · Blood donation drive · Volunteering · Prešeren competition · Music evening · Pomlad na II. gimnaziji · IChO chemistry olympiad preparation · Physics olympiad preparation · Biology olympiad preparation · Mathematics olympiad preparation · Logic olympiad preparation · Programming olympiad preparation · Psychology olympiad preparation · Economics olympiad preparation · Financial literacy competition preparation · Philosophy competition preparation · Astronomy competition preparation · Geography competition preparation · History competition preparation · Diabetes competition preparation · Science competition preparation · Cankar competition preparation · International exchanges
Summer camp: the school runs its own camp; whether it takes children from outside is not stated on the website
"Počitnice na Drugi" is a summer school on the campus for those who have finished year 6, 7, 8 or 9 of basic school, that is for future applicants rather than for the school's own pupils. In 2026 it runs from 29 June to 3 July, daily from 8.30 to 15.00, with eight subject workshops: English "English Quest", biology, social science, physics, a great language escape in French, German and Spanish, chemistry, a mathematics and computing workshop and a literary workshop in Slovene; in the middle of the week there is a full-day trip to the Sveti Martin thermal spa. An application form, general terms and a menu are published. Separately, within the school year the school holds a week of compulsory elective content at the outdoor centres of CŠOD - the first-year classes go to one of them in September - as well as excursions and exchanges with schools in France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway, Poland and India.
Teaching staff from the school's official website
✓Teachers listed by namepublished
✓Teacher qualifications
·Number of teachersthe school does not say
·Students per teacher or class sizenot stated
What the listings show: The school publishes a list of its teachers by name with subjects, form tutoring and the hours at which they see parents, and also photographs of eleven subject departments: the Slovene teachers, the mathematicians with a computing teacher, the English teachers, the German teachers, the Romance language teachers, the historians and geographers, the physicists and computing teachers, the chemists, the biologists, the physical education teachers and the social science teachers.
Leadership: Headteacher dr. Marko Jagodič, deputies Mateja Krumpak and Viljem Babič; International Baccalaureate coordinator Mateja Fošnarič, sports class coordinators Renato Kuzman and Dejan Korotaj. Diploma programme teachers: For the 2025-2027 intake the school posts a separate document with the teachers of every group and the hours a week: Slovene A: Lit - dr. Maja Savorgnani and Boris Svetel (5 hours each), Serbian A: Lit - Dušica Štiblar Božović, Macedonian A as a self-taught course - Maja Kovač, English A: Language and Literature - Klavdija Krempl Slana, head of the self-taught courses - Peter Cigrovski; English B - Andreja Gungl and mag. Peter Cigrovski, German B - Barbara Kovše, French B - Karmen Kaučič; Economics - dr. Lidija Kodrin, Psychology - Tara Sinkovič, Philosophy - mag. Matevž Rudl; Biology - Vesna Hojnik, Chemistry - Sanja Cvar, Physics - Gregor Brumec, Computer Science - Jernej Feguš; Mathematics HL - dr. David Gajser, SL - Ana Požgan and Manca Strmšek; TOK and CAS - mag. Matevž Rudl, Dora Lenart, Tanja Fajmut. Slovene for foreign pupils: A separate teacher of Slovene for foreign pupils - Tomaž Podbevšek, two hours a week. Additional work: In the programme of extracurricular activities for 2024/25 more than two hundred teachers and outside mentors delivered 6 246 hours of additional work across 1 536 meetings.
Safety and wellbeing from the school's official website
·CCTVnot stated on the website
·Security staffnot stated on the website
·Access controlnot stated on the website
✓Nurse or medical roomThe school doctor for 2026/27 is Maša Krajnc, a paediatrician; the school surgery is at Vošnjakova 2-4, with the stand-in and duty surgeries and their opening hours named, and the school dentists are Manca Pavšič and Mirjam Gorjan.
✓CounsellorA counselling service of three members - the social pedagogue Polonca Kiker, Tjaša Lepoša and the psychologist Katja Kokol - is available every day from 7.30 to 14.30; the school's English page on inclusion also names three, while its page on pastoral care names two, and both texts are left as they stand. Support for pupils with special needs rests on the law on their placement and is provided inside the ordinary class; the headteacher appoints a team that writes the individual programme, the attendance plan and the assessment strategy and monitors attainment - the form tutor as the leader of the team, an academic mentor, a member of the counselling service, the programme coordinator and the headteacher. In its inclusion policy the school lists what it works with: the language barrier, material hardship, gender and sexual identity, ethnicity, differing abilities, emotional and mental health, medical conditions, disability and other long-term difficulties. Pupils arriving from other schools are given a mentor from an older class; foreign pupils are helped by the school to arrange a residence permit, medical insurance and a place in a boarding house. Among the extracurricular activities there are groups about mental health - "Biti dovolj dober", led by the psychologist, and "Sproščanje z jogo".
✓Child protection policyThe school does not publish a separate child protection policy. What is published is the school rules, the assessment rules, the pupil code, the teachers' code, the library regulations and the criteria for school awards; the rules set out the procedure for entering the building, pupils' lockers and the right of the management to inspect a bag and a locker on reasonable suspicion. A separate page on the protection of whistleblowers has been set up.
·Staff trainingnot stated on the website
·Anti-bullying policynot stated on the website
Reviews
No reviews yet. The community rating counts towards the score once a school has five verified reviews - until then we do not show a zero, so as not to mislead.
Criteria breakdown criterion weight in brackets
Academics and programmes (16%)82 Community rating (16%)no dataparent reviews are needed: the criterion switches on at the fifth verified one Exams and destinations (12%) scored on disclosed data90 Safety and wellbeing (12%) scored on disclosed data70 Accreditation and verifiability (10%)90 Teaching staff (10%) scored on disclosed data90 Facilities (10%) scored on disclosed data75 Clubs and activities (8%) scored on disclosed data78 "Scored on disclosed data" stands where we count only what the school has written about itself on its own site: exams and destinations, safety and wellbeing, teaching staff, facilities, clubs and activities. A low score here means the school does not write about this, not that the school does not have it: a school with good security and a sparse site will score low. A school can fill in its profile, and the score will be counted again.
The score is counted from 8 of the 9 criteria.Only those with checkable data count: programmes and accreditations from official registers, the fee from a published price list. Where it says "scored on the median", the school has no data and the middle of the list is put in its place, so that a gap gives no advantage. Admissions, teaching staff and reviews come in as their data arrives.
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