site.btaPlovdiv Regional Governor Visits Asenovgrad, Joining Efforts against School Dropouts

Plovdiv Regional Governor Prof. Hristina Yancheva visited Asenovgrad Municipality on Friday as part of a series of meetings across all municipalities in the region to implement a mechanism for reducing school dropouts, the regional administration said. During her visit, Yancheva was accompanied by Plovdiv Deputy Regional Governor Nurdzhan Karadzhova, Asenovgrad Deputy Mayor Petar Petrov and Elena Savkova, Director of the Municipal Education Directorate.

Together with Asenovgrad Mayor Hristo Grudev she discussed how institutions at the local level are working to cover, include and prevent children and students from dropping out of the education system. Grudev pointed out that the Municipality does not stop its efforts to include children from vulnerable groups and that in early September a round table will be held in Asenovgrad on these problems and solutions will be sought.

Yancheva also visited the Nikola Vaptsarov Primary School in Asenovgrad and spoke with parents of children from vulnerable social groups in the Loznitsa district. In the conversation with School Director Kalina Vasileva, the main challenges in the work of teachers in the district with a mixed population and vulnerable groups were highlighted. Vasileva emphasized that sanctions against parents are not always effective, as suspending benefits for a year demotivates them even more. She stressed that the main problem is the inability to track the movement of children due to the constant migration of families, related to the search and finding of work, mainly abroad, noting that it is not clear whether and where a child is enrolled for education.

Yancheva commented that during her conversations with parents and mediators, other problems emerged that are not new, such as the language barrier, cultural specifics, the lack of parental support in the education process, the insufficient preparation of some teachers to work in a multicultural environment. In order to overcome the challenges of educational integration, joint and systematic work is necessary, which includes the school, the family, the local community, state and municipal institutions, she emphasized.

The number of dropouts in Plovdiv Region has decreased by 40% since 2019. Currently, 9% of students leave school before graduating. During the first six months of 2025, 264 acts were drawn up and 240 penal decrees were issued to parents who did not enroll their children in school or in preschool groups, or did not ensure their presence in class or in kindergarten.