In the year 1866, the folk school law was passed which led to the founding of folk schools to educate the country's youth. The first folk schools were often situated in the parish church villages. Schools were also quickly founded in the more remote villages of a parish. The building of schools was government-regulated from the start and from the 1880s the curator's office drew up unified type drawings to guide the building of schools.

Type drawings for school buildings were published for about 70 years, right up to the 1950s. Over time, facilities required of a school building grew; two classrooms and a small apartment for the teacher were no longer enough. Sports fields, dining halls and rooms for extracurricular activities were needed. The transition was made from simple log buildings to classicistic wooden schools and after that to multi-storey brick and render schools that were spacious enough to accommodate the large age groups born after the war.