site.btaDual Education in Bulgaria Develops Too Sluggishly, Think-Tank Says

The national plan for secondary education admissions in Bulgaria for the 2026/2027 school year shows that 63% of the enrolment positions are for vocational training. To ensure that secondary-level vocational education is linked to the needs of the labour market, it is essential to develop the dual education system, which combines academic classroom instruction with on-the-job training, says Zornitsa Slavova, senior economist at the Institute for Market Economics (IME), in an analysis published on the IME website on May 22.

In the Bulgarian dual education system, students of the 11th and 12th grades have apprenticeships in a real working environment in companies which have signed agreements with the schools. According to Slavova, the share of dual education in the country has been growing incrementally, by tenths of a percent, in recent years, far from the pace necessary for real structural impact on the labour market and on the quality of vocational training.

Dual education is centred on technical and industrial subjects, the analysis goes. The most dual-education admissions for 2026/2027 are planned for courses in "electricity supply and electric equipment" – 312 positions, which is over one-third of all enrolment positions in this area of study. Next on the list comes "automated systems and technologies in mechanical engineering" (208), followed by "culinary training" (169), "automotive equipment and mechatronics" (143), and "restaurants and catering" and "hybrid and electric vehicles" (130 each).

Dual education often accounts for only a small percentage of student admissions even towards the most popular occupations. For example, only 8% of students taking culinary courses and under 9% of those studying to work in the restaurant and catering business will receive on-the-job training in the next school year.

The situation is similar in the information technology sector. Despite the considerable increase in student admissions to such courses as "software development", "computer systems and technology" and "smart systems", the option of dual education is almost unavailable in the sector. In "computer graphics", where 650 new students will be admitted for the next school year, not a single dual-education position is offered. In "software development", the share of dual education is just 2%. This shows that the link between the economy and vocational training is underdeveloped in the IT industry, the analyst says.

With some occupations, the absence of dual education raises serious questions, she notes. For the 2026/2027 school year, this form of training is totally lacking for secondary-level students who will work to become assistant teachers, paramedics or healthcare assistants, or will take a course in "operational accounting" and other subjects where practical work ought to be an integral part of the training process.

Available data also show considerable disparities among Bulgaria's administrative regions. The highest share of dual education is reported in the region of Ruse, where 42% of vocational school students will receive a combination of classroom instruction and apprenticeship in the 2026/2027 school year. Relatively high levels are also observed in the regions of Gabrovo (23.5%), Lovech (22.1%) and Vidin (16.7%). Sofia Region, as opposed to Sofia City (which is a separate administrative region), comes next in the ranking with 15.8%. These are mainly regions where industry has a stronger presence and employers play a more active role in vocational training.

In Ruse, 465 vocational school students out of a total of 1,110 will be admitted to the dual form of education for the next school year. The proportion in Gabrovo is 104 out of 442, and in Lovech 104 out of 470. These regions exhibit a closer link between the local economy and vocational schools and a stronger involvement of industrial enterprises in education, the IME analysis says.

On the other end of the spectrum are regions where dual education is entirely or almost unavailable. Targovishte will have no dual-education students at all in 2026/2027. The percentage in Veliko Tarnovo is under 3%, Dobrich around 3%, and Pernik and Yambol under 4%. This shows that the application of the dual education system is uneven geographically.

One of the main reasons for the limited use of dual education may be that school authorities have difficulty finding employers who are willing to be actively engaged in the process, the analysis says. This form of training requires commitment from the company, which is expected to provide supervisors, jobs, equipment and training time and to stay effectively engaged with the student for at least three years. Small enterprises often have a hard time trying to deliver, while large companies may lack sufficient incentives to invest in secondary education.

Empirical studies and scientific publications clearly define the advantages of the dual education system:

• It teaches practical skills and narrows the gap between classroom knowledge and workplace performance;
• It facilitates the transition from study to employment and improves the students' chance of finding, upon graduation, the kind of jobs they were trained for;
• Employers are directly involved in staff training to meet the concrete needs of the economy rather than the requirements of a centrally compiled syllabus;
• Dual education is particularly important for industrial and technical occupations, where practical skills and the ability to operate equipment cannot be acquired in the classroom alone;
• Countries with advanced dual education systems such as Germany, Austria and Switzerland have lower youth unemployment and offer graduates a smoother transition to the labour market;
• On-the-job training increases students' motivation because they see a direct link between education and their future occupation and because they earn money while studying;
• The system makes it easier to retain young people in smaller industrial areas, where local employers are actively engaged in their training and often hire graduates;
• Practical work during the training process helps to build not only technical skills but also social skills such as discipline, teamwork, communication and adaptivity;
• Dual education allows faster adaptation to technological change as students get to operate workplace equipment, software and production processes; and
• The system's wider application can limit the teaching of courses with little practical value as employers choose to put resources where staff is really needed.

The vocational education system in Bulgaria is preoccupied with having more classes rather than providing career-oriented training. The limited use of dual education is another indication of the weak link between vocational training and the economy, the IME analysis concludes.