site.btaBulgarian Education System Lays Too Much Emphasis on Memorizing Facts, Minister Says

The Bulgarian education system lays too much emphasis on memorizing facts. It is far more important to encourage students to understand things, see the connections and develop their creativity, Education and Science Minister Krasimir Valchev said on the Sunday evening show Why, Mr Minister? on bTV.

"There is some basic knowledge which is indispensable and skill-forming, but sheer facts are overwhelming," Valchev said. He called for a revision of the syllabi, and noted that a concept has been published for the purpose. He sees a need to change the way of assessing students' performance.

"Reforming the syllabi would take more time, so we will make it faster by changing the Curriculum to dampen somewhat the drive for highly compartmentalized and specialized training and foreign language learning. If we look at the Curriculum, we will see that our system is centred on providing good foreign language knowledge to the kids. They do need to learn foreign languages, but we seem to have gone too far. Overall, our students cope much better with foreign languages now than they did 25 years ago, but much worse with mathematics and natural sciences," Valchev said.

The Minister believes that the low scores of Bulgarian students in the international PISA study are due to the syllabi and the Curriculum. "Content from the upper levels of education was moved to the lower levels, the syllabi became even more ambitious than before," he commented.

He stressed that mathematics and natural sciences take more time to master. "It is here, more than anywhere else, that if you miss out on something, you cannot catch up later."

Valchev hopes that the quick change of the Curriculum can be made in 2026-2027, while the reform of the syllabi will take four to five years.

There is an ongoing debate about whether to scrap external assessment after 4th and 10th grade, he said. As for 7th-graders applying for secondary school, it is necessary to think about whether it is suitable for the kids to specialize so early in their school studies.

The Education Ministry will appeal a ruling which the Supreme Administrative Court issued a few days ago, allowing students to challenge the grades they receive at matriculation exams. Valchev warned that if the court ruling enters into force, it will cause anarchy in the system and an impossibility to apply for secondary school.

He believes that a complete ban on mobile phones in schools will improve the educational environment. As an example, he cited neighbouring Greece, where the imposition of such a ban was followed by 16,000 penalties against non-compliant students. In Bulgaria, teachers generally refrain from penalizing students. One of the reasons is that this comes with too much paperwork, he said.

Valchev favours the idea of introducing a student behaviour mark, because, he says, it will serve as an incentive. "Bulgarian schools have a problem with discipline. Teachers have limited powers to instill discipline," he said.

Commenting on teachers' pay, the Minister said it follows the dynamics of the average wage in Bulgaria.