The strategy of development in rural areas of Croatia includes several factors. Among them is education. The education system in Croatia has a number of institutional, infrastructural and regional characteristics that are a frame of research for this article. Rural areas confront additional factors such as population migrations, poor socio-professional structures, long distances from cities, etc., which have consequences on the quality of education. A high quality education system provides a base for a better professional structure that can curb migrations (e.g. people staying in villages for education and not migrating to cities) and raise the quality of life through open activities in schools, as schools provide a meeting point for children and the whole population. The objectives of this article are, firstly, to present the findings of an analysis of basic education in rural areas of Croatia and, secondly, to recommend measures to improve access to and quality of education for rural people in order to make a better contribution to rural development. Therefore, after a brief presentation of the context of and justifications for this article, the document presents the findings for each level of education in the form of problems and, from these problems, proposes measures to ensure that education in rural areas is contributing to rural development. (Contains 7 figures, 2 tables and 1 note.)