New Minister: Bulgaria Education Holds Last Place in EU Competitiveness

Speaking Friday morning on TV, Bulgarian Education Minister Sergey Ignatov criticized the state of higher education in Bulgaria. Photo by BGNES

Education Minister Sergey Ignatov gave his opinions on the state of Bulgarian higher education on the Friday edition of "Hello, Bulgaria", Nova TV's morning program. 

"Bulgaria holds the last place for competitiveness," he declared.

"Bulgarian science and higher education are existing in a 'frozen environment', one that is characterized by patriarchal dependency of the younger generation on the older one."

"This dependency turned out to be a huge obstacle during the transition period for them to become at least a little more competitive within the European Union," Ignatov said.

According to him, the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS) is a very clumsy academy with too many institutes and a very complex hierarchy. Because of that, he believes an artificial nomenclature is being supported in Bulgaria.

"There are great scientists in BAS," he acknowledged, "but the system is structured in such a way that their work produces no results. The problem is that the Academy is built in such a way as to serve an economy that no longer exists."

Minister Ignatov reckoned that academic power had to be separated from commercial and financial power, and that this had to begin at university level.

His remarks came two days after Bulgarian Prime Minister Borisov had declared his support for “badly needed reforms” at the Academy of Sciences.

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