This work brings up the overview of the development of early and preschool education in the Republic of Croatia from its beginnings up to nowadays. Throughout their historical development, the institutions dealing with preschool children development underwent significant changes regarding nursery foundations, their funding and approach towards children. There is a representation of legislation on preschool upbringing and nursery settings. In accordance with the development of a preschool education system, a special segment of upbringing and education in national minority languages and using their alphabet, was developed. The main part of this work talks about national minorities in the Republic of Croatia who achieve their constitutional right on preschool upbringing and education in three basic ways: Model A: education using national minorities’ languages and alphabet; model B: bilingual education and model C: nurturing language and culture and special educational forms within the regular educational system of the Republic of Croatia. The analysis of Croatian education system and the Report on the implementation of Constitutional Law on the national minorities rights on education, starting from preschool up to secondary education, according to the above mentioned models, represent the realistic picture of the national minorities education system in the Republic of Croatia. Model C is the most common and there is the greatest interest for it. The lectures are carried out in the Croatian language, but there are two to five lessons a week for studying and nurturing language and literature of the national minorities, research and studies of their history and geography, as well as the culture of national minorities. Afterwards, there is a review of national minorities education systems in neighbouring countries as well as in the members of the European Union.