The purpose (ultimate or strategic goal) of the Croatian language as a school subject - the first language standard or the first language idiom is a statement of intention, accomplishments that are achieved at the end of the educational cycle or some other part of teaching process. The definition of purpose determines the cognitive direction of action in the philosophical, scientific and methodological sense, and thus the character of practical teaching - principles, contents, methods and forms of work, so if the purpose is not set well or maybe not set at all, the quality of the teaching process as a whole is questionable. This thesis reflects the ideas, settings, requirements, principles and proposals that arose from the author's practice of the Croatian language in teaching and the realization that the Croatian language as a school subject is in crisis, which is manifested in the system, programs, strategies, techniques, evaluations of teaching and learning, so it needs to be redesigned. The goal of the ideological-critical analysis of the school plans and programs, especially the definitions of the purpose in them, is the discovery of ideological influences and pragmatic interests that affect the determination of goals and decisions regarding school plans and programs and obtaining valid indicators for improving Croatian language as a school subject. Relevant literature has been studied and quality purpose definition criteria have been established. Then, it was researched how the purpose was determined in the history of the Croatian language as a school subject, and the experiences of teaching and learning the mother tongue of some European countries were synthesized in parallel. The main methods were: observation method, data analysis, analysis and comparison of historical documents, all forms of communication, reflection and metacognition. Evaluation and self-evaluation provided the author with a quality approach to the content and manner of defining the purpose of the Croatian language in secondary education. The hypothesis is: In plans and programs of Croatian language for secondary education from the seventies of the twentieth century until today, the purpose of learning and teaching the Croatian language and literature has not been set well. The hypothesis was not fully confirmed: The purpose is set well in some teaching plans and programs, but in some of them the criteria of quality purpose definition are not met. Some do not have a defined purpose, some have a partially well-set purpose, and in some the purpose has a completely missed point. As a teacher of the Croatian language, the author of this thesis was interested in why a large number, even academically educated citizens, are self-doubting and insufficiently educated to use the spoken and written language. Since illiteracy is ingrained at all language levels, and in the opinion of teachers, teaching programs and their application in school have a number of weaknesses, reflection led me to research how the purpose of the Croatian language was defined in teaching plans and programs and how it affected the quality of teaching. Background of the facts that served in writing this thesis is also the methodical practice, from which the facts were drawn in the process of determining, analyzing and interpreting the topic. Reflection and practice itself have led to the need to check whether the cause of the ineffectiveness of teaching the Croatian language as a school subject is the lack of a decision on what should be the purpose, role, final achievement of the Croatian language at the end of an educational stage, and this manifests itself as the failure to define or poor definition of purpose in lesson plans and programs. Reflexivity is a feature of modern society in general; people are constantly questioning personal actions and changing them based on those questionings. In practical teaching we constantly monitor and adjust our actions, that is, we use information about personal actions in order to improve them and make them more effective. This is very important for teaching because it is subject to rapid and frequent changes. Transmission of personal results in practice and reflexivity - constant re-examining one's own actions and changes for the better on the basis of this examination achieved and defined a firm decision on what is the essence, the reason for the school subject Croatian language, which we will present in this thesis. It was established that the definition of the Croatian language purpose from the 1970s to the 1990s was burdened to absurd limits with a Marxist and communist worldview. Since the 1990s, attempts have been made to set a quality purpose ("standards"), but to date this has failed. Recent documents by which reform is already being carried out have favoured fashionable changes, which, neglecting the good setting of the purpose, endanger the quality of the Croatian language by treating education as a technology and by setting outcomes that are not conditioned by quality content and for the realization of which gradual and systematic learning and teaching is not envisaged. Since there are no well-established educational goals of the Croatian language from the seventies of the twentieth century until today, it is not known what role the Croatian language should play in society, which is reflected in the failure to achieve desired learning outcomes in all areas of personal and social activity. The neglect of schooling in society is an additional reason that led to illiteracy of our people, a good part of high school and university students, even students of Croatian studies, and mostly neglect reflected on the Croatian language as the first language standard or, as it was traditionally called, mother tongue. The theoretical aspect of this thesis, which belongs to the field of methodology of literary education, was formed inductively: by systematizing and generalizing many methodological experiential facts, the scientific level of its development was reached. The theoretical level arose on the basis of practical work in the interpretation and adoption of literature and language and the sciences associated with them, as practice was theoretically conceived and formulated as a system of scientific problems and relationships. Purposefulness is a determinant of every work, including the teaching of the Croatian language; it is important to determine the purpose as the ultimate goal of learning that comes after a certain level of schooling, in this case secondary education, and the alignment of the goal with the contents and methods is the foundation of good teaching. The question of purpose comes down to what is expected of students at the end of the teaching period, by analogy at the end of the school year, the teaching complex to the teaching unit, i.e. why a particular material is being processed, what wants to be achieved by it. The purpose expresses the general guidelines of the school subject, the educational goods and the level of achievement to which it aspires. The purpose defined in this way can be called a standard, and in the literature the expressions final product of learning and teaching, general goal, strategic goal are used. Purpose of learning is upbringing, education, quenching curiosity and training for performing some activity. Learning is not an end in itself, instead it should be reflected in a better understanding of oneself and others in order to create better and more humane living conditions, and this presupposes that students should know for what purpose they learn, and teachers for what, for what purpose they teach. Therefore, if we want to achieve quality teaching, which has long been discussed in Croatian society, it is necessary to relevantly, clearly, realistically and appropriately define the purpose of teaching the Croatian language in secondary education. A good definition of the purpose of teaching, according to The end adorns the work, is a necessary means for the development of effective teaching. Quality enrichment of teaching with a well-set purpose would interrupt the averaging of students, which is often conditioned by haste in the adoption of teaching content and inadequate personal supervision over the implementation of the program. In the analysis of the documents, it was investigated whether the purpose of teaching literature and language was set in the documents at all; if so, whether it is well set (criteria are established) and then whether it is achieved in teaching. The notion of purpose can be described here as an answer to the question of what a student must know and what he must be able to do at the end of the educational period, i.e. at the end of secondary education, which this thesis deals with. Therefore, it was researched according to which the teaching of the Croatian language in the teaching plans and programs was theoretically and practically oriented, and how this influenced the teaching process. Based on the chronological research of the cultural-historical phenomenon of teaching (more precisely the purpose) and critical assessment of the definitions that were set for the purpose of the subject Croatian language from the seventies of the twentieth century until today, the future progress of teaching with quality setting of purpose is considered. New ways have been devised in the programming of teaching of Croatian language and in its realization. The picture of Croatian language teaching has become clearer and more rational.