site.btaPrime Minister Sets Out National Education Priorities

Prime Minister Sets Out
National Education
Priorities


Sofia, September 26 (BTA) - Prime Minister Georgi Bliznashki on
Friday opened a public discussion on the national priorities in
the field of education, hosted by the Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences, the Government Information Service reported.

Bliznashki said the current caretaker government has continued
the work of the previous government in implementing the updated
Higher Education Strategy 2020, which is one of the conditions
for launching the new Operational Programme Science and
Education for Smart Growth. Until 2020, Bulgaria can use 1.4
billion leva in EU and national funding for science and
education, he said.

The first goal of the Higher Education Strategy is to increase
the ratio of Bulgarians with higher education from the current
27 per cent to at least 36 per cent by 2020. Bliznashki noted
that education must be consistent with labour market demand,
which is one of the challenges confronting the Bulgarian
education system. This implies that those vocational areas which
are most in demand should be financed as a matter of priority,
he said.

By 2020, sixty per cent of the funding provided to universities
should be based on the quality of education, and not on the
number of students enrolled. At present, more than 40 per cent
of Bulgarian undergraduates study law, economics or public
administration, but the nation actually needs information
technology experts, engineers, physicists, chemists and doctors,
which is why the respective subjects will be promoted, the
Prime Minister said.

He announced that the government is drafting a Literacy Strategy
2014-2020 and a Vocational Training Strategy 2015-2020. Public
spending on higher education as a percentage of GDP is to be
increased gradually until 2020, he said.

Discussing school education, Bliznashki said it is about time to
introduce the so-called dual system which combines education
and apprenticeship. VI/VE

//