On the proposal of the City Council of Trebinje and the Provincial Administration of Bosnia and Herzegovina, on August 9, 1921, the Ministry of Education of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes made a decision to transform the former Higher Trade School into the Lower Gymnasium. The gymnasium started working in the building of the Trade School. In 1935, he moved to a building in the Old Town (Kastel), which was ceded by the Ministry of the Army. Today, the Museum of Herzegovina is located in that building.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Milan Stojadinović, with the intervention of the diplomat and poet Jovan Dučić, passed the Decision on the transformation of the Gymnasium into a higher state Real Gymnasium in 1935. In 1938, Jovan Dučić and Milan Stojadinović laid the foundation stone for the new building of the Gymnasium.
Until the war, only the foundations for the new building were made. In 1958, the School of Economics started working in that place in the new building.
From 1960 to 1962, the Gymnasium was located in the building of the Orthodox Church Municipality, today the Diocesan House, and then moved into the newly built building of the School of Economics. In 1964, a new institution, the School Center, was formed, where all secondary schools in Trebinje are located to this day.
In the period from 1980 to 1991, due to the reform of secondary education, students were not enrolled in the Gymnasium, but in the then OOUR 2, where students were enrolled in language-translation, mathematics-physics-computer and electrical engineering schools.
Since 1991, independent Gymnasiums have been reopened, so that with the Decision of the Municipal Assembly of Trebinje on the establishment, the Gymnasium "Jovan Dučić" will start working.
