site.btaBTA Director General Awarded for Significant Media Support for Higher Education in Stara Zagora

Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev was awarded by Trakia University here on Thursday for BTA's significant media support for higher education in Stara Zagora. He was presented with a certificate and an honorary plaque by the Trakia University Rector, Prof. Dobri Yankov, at an official ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of higher education in Stara Zagora.

In his speech, Valchev said that knowledge is a not a privilege for selected people. One is born with the right to knowledge, just like one is born with the right to life. However, the right to knowledge is what differentiates one from the other biological species. The right to higher education, as part of the right to knowledge, should not be limited only to capital cities, he argued. An expression of that understanding is the established in 1974 of the Higher Institute of Animal Technology and Veterinary Medicine as the first higher education institution in Stara Zagora, by transferring from Sofia the Agricultural Academy's Faculties of Animal Technology and of Veterinary Medicine, which became Trakia University in 1995.

Similarly to the right to education, the right to information as another form of the right to knowledge should not be limited to information only from the capital, Valchev went on to say. In his words, it is that strive for territorial expansion of knowledge that connects Trakia University with BTA, which puts a lot of effort into providing news from across Bulgaria evenly.

With the help of universities in Bulgaria, BTA is trying to give knowledge in an accessible way, including on topics that are not easy to present, including those for which Trakia University prepares specialists. "

"And since we celebrate the half-century anniversary of higher education in Stara Zagora on the day on which the Bulgarian Orthodox Church honours the memory of St. Spyridon, who is also regarded as the patron saint of horses and cattle, and whose feast day is also celebrated by the goatherds and about whom it is written in his biography that 'his simple words were powerful,' it is worth wishing that the universities in Bulgaria, including Trakia University, create educated people who can explain their work clearly and simply in the media."