site.btaOutgoing Education Minister Valchev: All Schools Get STEM Centres by Summer
All Bulgarian schools will have STEM centres built by the summer, Outgoing Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev told journalists on Friday. Valchev opened new STEM classrooms at Primary School Hristo Smirnenski.
Valchev said that analyses showed children were more motivated to learn mathematics and science in these classrooms. He added that he had visited many schools and that this one had once had few pupils and an unappealing environment, but that he now saw improvements in both enrolment and facilities.
Valchev added that the most serious issue in educational infrastructure was the lack of gymnasiums. “A quarter of schools, 600 in total, had no gymnasiums. In recent years, some have been built, but nearly 400 schools still have none. This remains a challenge,” he said. He added that outdoor sports facilities were just as important, as children spend hours there and they are used outside class time as well.
He added that another objective was to increase the number of pupils receiving vocational training, which had been achieved over the past eight years. Nearly 60% of upper-secondary students were enrolled in vocational programmes.
“I hope that everything we did over the past year and the discussion we initiated will serve as a foundation, because the education system’s structure needs to change, along with curricula and assessment,” Valchev said. Policies on inclusive education also needed to continue.
He said the education system employed about 92,000 teaching professionals across 4,000 institutions, while acknowledging the existence of local issues.
Bulgaria has been rolling out STEM learning environments in schools with EU support under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Education and Science Minister Krasimir Valchev has said the initiative grew out of work launched in 2019, when the first programme financed 250 STEM centres, and was later scaled up so that STEM facilities would be built in the remaining 2,000-plus schools. By April 2025, more than 2,200 STEM centres had been completed nationwide, including newly opened facilities such as the STEM centre at the Professional Natural and Mathematical High School in Vratsa, equipped for applied programming and supported by an investment of nearly BGN 350,000.
In May 2025, construction also began on a national STEM centre in Sofia, intended to support teaching and help raise students’ results in mathematics and the natural sciences. By the start of the 2025/2026 school year, the ministry said schools across the country were implementing projects to create a modern STEM environment, combining STEM centres and natural science classrooms into integrated complexes.
/KK/
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