site.btaBTA, University of Agribusiness and Rural Development Sign Media Partnership Agreement

The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) and the University of Agribusiness and Rural Development (UARD) in Plovdiv signed a media partnership agreement on Monday. The document was signed by BTA Director General Kiril Valchev and UARD President Svetla Dimitrova at the BTA National Press Club in the south-central city. 

Valchev recalled that the UARD has a history of over 30 years, because it began as a college of agriculture in 1991. In 2011, it was transformed into University of Agribusiness and Rural Development by a National Assembly decision. The UARD is part of many international organizations. It has a department of economics and management and of language studies, specializations, and qualifications, he noted.

"I hope that with your help and with the internships we will organize at our National Press Club in Plovdiv, we will find our future permanent economics correspondent in the city," the BTA Director General told the UARD President. He expressed the hope that the pieces of information about the UARD that the agency will publish will help popularize the university both in Bulgaria, where it has branches in Ruse (on the Danube) and Veliko Tarnovo (North Central Bulgaria), and abroad.

BTA seeks to partner with all eight higher education establishments in Plovdiv, with a partnership agreement already in force with the Agricultural University and one being drafted with the Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv. The Bulgarian News Agency aims to have partnership agreements as soon as possible with all 52 Bulgarian universities, with such documents having already been signed with half of the universities in this country. In Valchev's words, BTA wants to help them become move visible both in Bulgaria and abroad, make their scientific activity more visible, and show the fate of their students and how they fare on the job market. The greater goal is to make young people stay in Bulgaria and to attract students from other countries, because Bulgaria offers education at a much lower price than universities in other places in the EU do, and in a particularly pleasant social environment, he added.

UARD President Dimitrova said the fact that BTA has turned its attention to the UARD means that the public needs this university to become more recognizable and play its part in Bulgarian citizens' growth in the field of education. With its future publications, the UARD will show its professionalism with how its cadres have succeeded professionally. "We don't have students of ours registered at the labour office, we have very successful cadres such as mayors, deputy mayors of many municipalities," she said. In her words, the UARD is a partner of INVEST European University Alliance, and long-stranding partnerships with international European universities is a step towards building the educational service that the university offers its students. "This partnership with the BTA will contribute to our society having access to quality higher education such as ours," Dimitrova noted.