The educational program - a policy of maintaining the status quo and repression

Author: Yavor Ganchev
This commentary is an analysis of the government's education program for the period 2017-2021, published on 02.08.2017 on the Council of Ministers website here.

Equating staying in school with getting an education

Some of the first measures to be implemented (340 and 341) are aimed at a longer and earlier coverage of all children in the system. Although the PISA studies show the result of staying in school (over 40% functional illiteracy among 15-year-old students), the measures are aimed not at the proven failed system, but outside it - at its users. However, early and prolonged institutionalization will not only not fix the system, but, contrary to the claimed social benefits, has a proven detrimental effect on children's development.

Decentralization of the system is necessary, and steps towards it are completely lacking.

Teachers are cited as the main factor for the quality of the educational service in the very description of the priority. The problem is that in order for the educational service to become quality – that is, suitable for its diverse clients (currently it is intended for a non-existent secondary school student) and adequate to the development of society and business – measures are needed for decentralization of management, rejection of fixed educational content and autonomy of learning communities. The reason there are no such things in the program is that in practice this means empowering parents, teachers and students with regard to decisions on setting and following goals in education (real pedagogical and economic autonomy), at the expense of the power of the Ministry of Education and Science to determine who will learn what and how the money will be spent on it. This is too high a price for a reform that the government is not willing to pay.

The unwillingness to change the authoritarian model of governance goes hand in hand with a worrying ignorance regarding elementary pedagogical and psychological issues - for example, measure 346 speaks of achieving functional literacy through subject content.

The ability to understand (i.e. functional literacy), however, is not the result of access to (correct) information. It is the result of experience gained through participation in real-life activities that are meaningful and beneficial to the participants.

Unfortunately, such activities in Bulgarian schools cannot be carried out according to regulations, because this requires autonomy - everyone to choose and organize their own activities. Highly qualified and very well-paid teachers are not enough for this if all they can and are obliged to do is follow the educational goals of the Ministry of Education, and not the specific educational needs of their real students.

Ideologizing education harms its quality

According to the program, the education system has an ideological function - to foster patriotism and be a supporter of the Bulgarian national identity (goals 97 and 98). Unfortunately, ideology in education only worsens the already low quality of the educational service. Although many feel comfortable with a state that, through the school system, has usurped the responsibility of parents and families for the upbringing and education of children, education lacks quality, patriotism and identity precisely because of such usurpation over the course of decades. We will not even wait for the real goal of this ideological function - to foster obedience to authority, disguised as patriotism and national pride. It is precisely national pride and patriotism that suffer from this abuse, which is evident in the attitude towards everything Bulgarian among young people. But trying to solve problems with the same tools that caused them is not a patent only of the Bulgarian state.

The program aims to preserve the state monopoly in the sector, not to improve quality

In summary, the program and the first activities for its implementation show a misunderstanding of the essence of education as a right guaranteed by the Constitution and a disregard for the state's international commitments to recognize, protect and support the right to education. There is a concern for preserving the state monopoly in the management of the sector, for possible measures to maintain the social function of the system, in which over 120,000 voters work (measure 339, to double teachers' salaries) and, unfortunately, with an emphasis on repressive actions to ensure compliance by service users. This policy is not aimed at reforms, but at strengthening the status quo, and therefore will not lead to the resolution of the known problems.

In the program, parents are mentioned twice, and autonomy or self-government - zero times. Against this background, measure 345 for “support for the personal development of every child and student” understandably contains only activities to provide resources, but not to provide opportunities for autonomous management of the available resources. Civic education and training in entrepreneurship in the context of a system managed authoritarianally is simply a dumb joke, and the idea of serving the needs of business personnel through an education system that is managed in a planned manner is a utopia. Therefore, the service provided by the system will continue to bring no meaning or benefits to its users, and families who do not agree to give up responsibility for the education of their children will continue to find solutions outside the system.

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