A comparison is drawn up between the 1991 and 1998 Slovenian upper secondary school curricula and post-2000 curricula of Irish and Finish upper secondary schools. A new curricular reform based on Slovenian and foreign experience has taken place in Slovenia in 2006/2007 with a view to improving the quality of education. This paper is based on the evaluation study "Evaluation of the upper secondary education from the perspectives of the extensiveness of the curriculum, inclusion of the cross-curriculum knowledge, and representativeness of the curriculum goals" conducted at Educational Research Institute in 2005-2006 by Dr Milena Ivanuš-Grmek (principle investigator). The theoretical framework is didactical and educationally transactional with the emphasis laid on the need to develop interactive communication between teachers and pupils with a view to making the subjects less burdensome. The paper compares the current level of changes in the Slovenian upper secondary schools with those in Irish in Finish ones in terms of introducing European classes, interdisciplinary links and the aim to offer efficient and quality knowledge. The conclusion is that the latter two are comparable with each other and transformational in character to a greater extent than the Slovenian one. The Slovenian upper secondary school is striving to shape a new identity for itself as it is a step between the nine-year primary school introduced by the 1999 curriculum reform and the university joining the Bologna process only now. It is defined as the most demanding school at the general secondary education level. The paper (Novak, 2006) argues that syllabi based on the curricular reform are incoherent, namely that not all the objectives at all subject areas and at all taxonomic levels (from the lowest to the highest) are given equal importance. From the educational anthropology point of view we will offer answers as to which parts of human personality various types of (upper) secondary schools develop, considering in particular the general shift in paradigm from teaching to learning. The method used in the paper is qualitative and quantitative. First we describe the main characteristics and objectives of the Slovenian upper secondary schools. Then we compare the quality points of the Slovenian schools with the ones in Ireland and Finland. To this end we draw up a comparison table and we provide some explanation of it. The common point to all of them is that they are all updating their teaching model by giving a more active role to pupils. Didactical shortcomings of the Slovenian upper secondary school are the following: pupils are not responsible for their school results, pupils like to complain about the school policy and the teaching methods, parents are not enough involved in decision making on school policy, teachers rarely teach in a team using interdisciplinary method, rather they individually focus on their subject matter. Teachers teaching in the first two years of upper secondary school spend less time preparing for classes than when they teach the last two years because of the pressure of the forthcoming matura exam, i.e. nation-wide school-leaving exam. On the basis of previous reforms it is possible to conclude that the current reform is promising more than teachers are qualified to deliver. Therefore, the paper will discuss some neurolinguistic techniques paving the way to achieving the newly set objectives.The current observations of teaching in Slovene upper secondary school indicate that teachers mainly evaluate the lower level of knowledge, i.e. knowing the facts, according to the Bloom or Marzan classification, rather than higher levels. An overview of the EURYDICE information source (2005) makes it clear that different types of upper secondary schools develop different competencies, such as technical, linguistic and communicational and contemplative.- EURYDICE information source, Key data on education in Europe 2005. - OECD (2004). International Survey of Upper Secondary School: Technical Report by OECD. Organization for Economic.- Finish national board of education (2003). National core curricu?um for upper secondary schools 2003.- NOVAK, Bogomir. Odnos med znanjem in zmožnostmi v ciljih u?nih na?rtov gimnazije : kompetence v izobraževanju. Vzgoja izob., 2006, letn. 37, št. 1, str. 51-55. [COBISS.SI-ID 31453538]- IVANUŠ-GRMEK, Milena, KOBAL GRUM, Darja, NOVAK, Bogomir, VRŠNIK PERŠE, Tina, JAVORNIK KRE?I?, Marija, RUTAR, Tina. Evalvacija gimnazijskega izobraževanja z vidika obsežnosti u?nih na?rtov, povezanosti znanja in zastopanosti ciljev. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut, 2006. 208 str., ilustr. http://www.pei. si/gimnazije%20-%20grmek.pdf. [COBISS.SI-ID 1527127]