Bulgaria to Step up Security at Schools, Kindergartens

The participants in a national meeting dedicated to security in schools and kindergartens, vowed to step up security at educational establishments in Bulgaria.

The extraordinary meeting, which was organised by Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Meglena Kuneva, was held in Sofia on Monday.

Among the participants in the meeting were deputy ministers from the interior, justice and sports ministries, the mayor of Sofia, Yordanka Fandakova, the chairperson of the State Agency for Child Protection, Bulgarian Ombudsman Maya Manolova, representatives of the national association of municipalities, MPs, psychologists and parents.

The meeting was summoned in response to the recent incidents involving students and teachers in several schools across Bulgaria.

In the beginning of March, a father broke into the National School of Arts in Pleven and hit a student in the back with a chair.

Last week, two female students started a fight in class in a school in Bulgaria's fourth largest city, Burgas. Few hours later, the yard of another school in the city became an arena for massive fight among approximately fifty people.

All kinds of measures are being taken to step up security at schools and kindergartens, including the installation of additional technical equipment, such as cameras, lighting and turnstiles.

The measures are part of the Accessible and Safe School national programme, which foresees the allocation of BGN 1.5 M to boost security in Bulgarian schools.

A plan for action in the event of a terrorist attack has been developed for each school, with rectors of schools undergoing training on how to act in the event of terrorist attack and bomb threat.