site.btaEastern Serbian Town Hosts Roundtable on Bulgarian Education and Language

Eastern Serbian Town Hosts Roundtable on Bulgarian Education and Language

Bosilegrad, Eastern Serbia, July 14 (BTA) - The eastern Serbian town of Bosilegrad hosted a roundtable Thursday focused on the preservation of the Bulgarian identity among ethnic Bulgarian people in this part of Serbia. The forum was organized by the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) and its local press club, in association with the GLAS association.

Bulgaria's Consul General in Nis, Edvin Sougarev, spoke of a need to make an effort to raise awareness among local parents of the benefits of enlisting their children in Bulgarian-language classes. He suggested that students who have attended Bulgarian-language classes in Serbian schools should enjoy preferential treatment when they apply for a Bulagrian university.

The Chairman of the Parliamentary Culture and Media Committee, Slavcho Atanassov, promised to forward this and other ideas to the Bulgarian legislature.

Just one student of a total of 31 first-graders in a Bosilegrad school asked to enroll in a Bulgarian-language class in the 2016/2017 school year, said the school's headmaster Metodi Chipev.

Experts from the Ministry of Education and Science said that funding is available for Bulgarian Sunday schools and for teacher training abroad.

BTA Director General Maxim Minchev noted that, as a public and socially responsible institution, the mission of BTA is to support any initiatives that can help sustain the Bulgarian national identity and Bulgarian language among ethnic Bulgarian communities abroad.

Among the participants in the forum were also Bosilegrad Mayor Vladimir Zahariev and headmasters of schools in Dimitrovgrad and Ismail (Ukraine).