site.btaBulgarian News Agency Signs Cooperation Agreement with University of Telecommunications and Post

The Director General of the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Kiril Valchev and the Rector of the University of Telecommunications and Post (UTP) Prof. Dr. Miglena Temelkova signed a cooperation agreement at the BTA National Press Club on Friday. Prof. Miglena Temelkova is also President of the Council of Rectors of Higher Education Institutions in Bulgaria.

"This is yet another cooperation agreement between BTA and a Bulgarian university and this is the 37th one, and our goal is to have such agreements with all Bulgarian universities by the end of this year", Kiril Valchev said. He pointed out that these agreements insure the systematic provision of information materials by the universities to BTA, which distributes them to the public. "BTA is also a partner of various events of the universities and we rely on interns from them in the Agency", Valchev added.

He said that as of today, out of 379 BTA employees, 69 are students, or one in five BTA employees is a student. He noted that in 2021 every fifth, even every fourth, person at BTA was a retiree.

The University of Telecommunications and Post is one of the few Bulgarian institutions with a longer history than BTA. The University is the successor of the State Telegraph and Postal School, founded on January 31, 1881 by Prince Alexander the First. "Due to the fact that BTA is younger than UTP, we have no information about the founding of the school, but we have news related to the next stages of the school's history and I will give you news from February 18, 1948, when the Sixth Grand National Assembly adopted the Law on the State Telegraph Postal Institute and gave it the status of a semi-university special educational institution", Kiril Valchev told Temelkova.

He also provided her with news from 1970 when the Presidium of the National Assembly gave a name to this institute, as well as news of the decisions of the National Assembly on July 25, 1997, and May 26, 2015. With the former, the school became an autonomous College of Telecommunications and Post, and with the latter, it was transformed into a University of Telecommunications and Post.

“It is clear from our reports that you have more than 1,000 - 1,100 students, and we hope that some of them will choose BTA for their internships, and then for work,” Valchev said. He noted that even without a contract there is a great development of BTA publications related to the UTP. "If in 2020 there were only two publications in Bulgarian and none in English in our feeds, last year we already had 40 publications about UTP in Bulgarian and seven in English", the Director General said.

"I would like to thank BTA, as well as Kiril Valchev for the special treatment to UTP and it was romantic to hear the history of the school through the eyes of BTA", prof. Miglena Temelkova said, noting that the university goes back more than 140 years. "For us this contract is valuable and not because we have not partnered before, but because I believe that educational institutions and professional organizations, such as the BTA, and businesses, such as our business partners, should go together in carrying out their activities", she said.

She stressed that one of BTA's biggest advantages is that through its news in English it contributes to attracting more students to Bulgaria from abroad. She added that BTA is perhaps the only media outlet that publishes in a language other than Bulgarian. "If universities can provide the theory, organizations such as the BTA can provide the practice in teaching a number of subjects in Bulgarian universities, not just journalism, because engineering universities have their own contribution made to the BTA", the Rector added.

She expressed hope that by the end of 2025 BTA will have contracts with all Bulgarian universities and will start signing contracts with universities from abroad as well.

Kiril Valchev thanked Prof. Miglena Temelkova and all Bulgarian universities, as she now chairs the Council of Rectors. "One of our next goals is to conclude similar cooperation agreements with the Bulgarian Studies Departments [in the universities from abroad] - first with the universities from our neighbouring countries", the Director General said.