This document consists of six reports that each provide essential basic information on the organization of the education system of one of the following countries as of 1995-1996: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. Each report includes information on some or all of the following aspects of the given country's initial training system: responsibilities and administration (background, basic principles, distribution of responsibilities, legal framework and administration, legislative process, reforms, provision, curricular regulation, inspection, advisory/consultative bodies, financing, private schools, vocational orientation/guidance); preschool education (historical background, administration, curriculum and assessment, teachers, statistics); compulsory education; compulsory education and/or basic education (primary education, presecondary education, institutional separation at the lower secondary level, basic school curriculum, textbooks, assessment, teachers, statistics); secondary education (aims, curriculum, upper and lower secondary school education, secondary vocational and technical schools, integrated secondary vocational-technical schools, vocational training centers, assessment, teachers, statistics); vocational education (vocational schools, secondary vocational-technical schools and technical schools, special vocational training schools); teachers (teacher training, inservice teacher training, teachers' working hours); and higher education (admission requirements, tuition fees, types and lengths of courses, qualifications, academic year, universities and equivalent, nonuniversity higher education). (Forty-nine tables/figures are included.) (MN)