Tertiary education

A lot of controversy has been stirred up by the Education Ministry's decision to open up jobs in public education to graduates of private colleges. These reactions however have deflected attention away from two significant moves which are being introduced in the new bill on tertiary education.

Bulgaria climbs two positions ahead of the countries' competitiveness rankings, compiled annually by the World Economic Forum.

Our country is already in 49th place out of 141 countries, Maria Prohaska of the Center for Economic Development, which is the official partner of the ranking for our country, reported to Horizon.

The Education Ministry has launched a project to send ninth graders who have failed their year to vocational training centers. 

Interim Minister of Education Valer-Daniel Breaz, on Monday, responded to the criticisms regarding the Order that pupils who took the average below 5 at the National Assessment will go to vocational schools, saying that no student will be denied access to education.

 22 municipal and secondary schools and vocational schools will be renewed under sub-measure 7.2 "Investments in the creation, improvement or expansion of all types of small-scale infrastructure" of the Rural Development Program (RDP) 2014-2020.

The National Education minister Ecaterina Andronescu on Tuesday said in central Targu Mures that in the near future the ministry will focus on turning all vocational schools into dual vocational ones and that by the future Education Law the technical high schools are to be turned into dual technical high schools.

Medicine is now fourth in Bulgaria in terms of number of students, having overtaken law. At the same time, to date there is a shortage of healthcare professionals, especially nurses, Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev said in Varna, quoted by Focus Radio.

Nearly BGN 3 million will be allocated to vocational schools that open classes for certain specialties with an expected labour shortage in the future, said Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev, who awarded Bulgarian schools and teachers who took part the European Programming Week, Focus News Agency reports.

The number of pupils enrolled in vocational education rose by 22.9pct in the school year 2016-2017, to 84,400, representing 5.6pct of the total secondary school pupils and 2.3pct the total school population, according to the data centralized by the National Institute of Statistics.

AGERPRES National News Agency on Wednesday became a member of the National Committee of the Live Skills European project, initiated by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme, alongside the Culture & Mass Media Federation FAIR - MediaSind, the British Council and other partners from Bulgaria, Greece and the UK.