Stjepan Radić is one of the most prominent Croatian politicians of the 20th century. The paper deals with his life and work with an emphasis on activities in the field of education. The aim of the paper is to present his life path that led to the founding of the Croatian Peasant Party and his position as Minister of Education of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, where during his mandate he tried to reduce the uneven level of education within the then society. Problems such as the inequality of social strata, the provision of equal opportunities and educational opportunities are still present a century after Stjepan Radić's life. The paper particularly highlights his work on school reform, the goal of which was to educate the peasantry through proposals and guidelines for improving the school system. The role of education as a primary tool for the improvement of society is the backbone of the work of Stjepan Radić and his supporters, who are called radićevci. With the principle of education towards freedom, they aimed for intensive education as a way of developing the individual and the nation. With educational policies, they wanted to reduce the class differences between the peasantry and other layers of Croatian society at the time for the benefit of society as a whole.