1940 - He graduated from the Maribor teacher's training college in 1960 and was teaching in various towns; after he got his degree from the Academy of Education in 1965 he started teaching in Sladki Vrh. In 1971 he became a stage director of the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor and in 1987 he took over the artistic leadership of the MGL - Mestno gledališče ljubljansko (The Ljubljana City Theatre). In 1991 he took over the leadership of the Drama in Ljubljana.
In 1990 he was elected a Member of Parliament. Between 1992 and 1993 he acted as a vice-president of the executive counsel of the municipal assembly of Maribor, responsible for social activities. He has been a member of National Assembly since 1992. From 1983 to 1987 he was the president of the Slovene Writers Association.
He started writing prose and polemics in the sixties. Thematically he was encouraged by the miserable existence of teachers in the countryside, the disintegration of traditional values and the disputability of new ones, all of which he dealt with in collections of short narratives and drama texts like Ribe na plitvini (Fish on Shoal, 1968), Naj poje čuk (Let the Screech Owl Sing, 1971), Tolmun in kamen (Pool and Stone, 1972). These works consist of many autobiographical features. They are humorous, satirical, and even sarcastic. He uses his own childhood as a source for his stories for children: collections Hotel sem prijeti sonce (I Wanted to Hold the Sun, 1981) and Slišal sem kako trava raste (I Heard How the Grass Grows, 1990).
Partljič continued the tradition of Cankar's drama (Hlapci was continued by the comedy Oskubite jastreba (Pluck the Vulture, 1977) and achieved a great response with the audience with his comedies Ščuke pa ni (Pike is Nowhere, 1973), O ne ščuke pa ne (Oh No, Not the Pike, 1976), and Ščuka, da te kap (Pike to Kill for, 1987). The post-war events are described in his most successful play Moj ata, socialistični kulak (My Father, the Socialist Kulak) from 1983. Partljič's stories, which include features of black humour and absurd, were performed on TV (Mama umrla, stop (Mother Died, Stop) broadcasted in 1974; O težavah s Kalmanovim truplom (About the Trouble with Kalman's Body) in 1977), and also filmed (Vdovstvo Karoline Žašler (The Widowhood of Karolina Žašler) in 1976 and Moj ata, socialistični kulak in 1987, both directed by Matjaž Klopčič).
As a playwright and a stage director he is thematically fascinated by the political contradictions, which drive people into the extreme positions. Partljič has, as a narrator, reached the depths of the theatre world and shown it in its extremes. As a writer of humoresques he commented on the events in Slovene culture, and with his political humoresques he depicted the Slovene independence from 1988 to 1992.