site.btaCaretaker Government Education Ministry to Work on Four Main Priorities

Caretaker Government Education Ministry to Work on Four Main Priorities

Sofia, February 6 (BTA) - The work of the Ministry of Education and Science will be guided by four main priorities, caretaker Minister of education Nikolai Denkov told journalists Monday. In secondary education efforts will focus on the preparation of the state matriculation exams, national external valuation and enrolment after graduation from primary education.

In the next two months the caretaker team will prepare a final variant of the National Strategy for Research Development and an updated draft to amend and supplement the Academic Staff Development Act. Operational Programme Science and Education for Intelligent Growth is also exceedingly important, Denkov said.

The priority related to secondary education covered activities concerning tens of thousands of teachers, school students and parents, the Minister explained. The organization and the already announced dates for national external valuation and state matriculation exams will not be changed.

The team of the ministry will pay special attention to the National Strategy for Development of Research, because it is a basic requirement for the implementation of OP. The previous Parliament lacked a very short time to develop the academic staff, Denkov recalled.

"One of the most important elements in the proposed changes is determining minimum requirements for holding academic positions of associate professor and professor, as well as the award of higher academic degrees, Deputy Minister Ivan Dimov said.

The caretaker team of the ministry needs some more time to pinpoint the problems in the Operational Programme and the possible solutions, Denkov said.

"The ministry should continue to collect project proposals under the operational programme. The aim is to speed up the process of negotiation, because in the beginning of the third year of the programme period are only 116 to the total value of 324 million leva, which is 24 per cent of the budget," Deputy Minister Vanya Staikova said. Only 39 million leva, or 2.8 per cent of the programme budget, have been paid by January 31.