site.bta24 Education Programmes to Get State Funding Next School Year

The caretaker government approved 24 national programmes for the development of education to support key education policies in the next school year, the government press service said here Wednesday.

More than EUR 115 million is to be invested in kindergartens and schools, while pre-school and school education policies will be expanded with new activities.

The existing national programme No Aggression for a Safe Educational Environment is being expanded and upgraded through the new national programme Inclusive and Safe Educational Environment. It puts the focus on support for students with learning difficulties and provides continued vocational training for young people with special needs.

This is intended to provide care for young people with sensory, intellectual and physical disabilities who, after completing 12th grade, do not have access to suitable forms of training tailored to their specific needs and health condition. The programme also brings together practice, rehabilitation, therapy and social support in a single model delivered by a multidisciplinary team of teaching specialists, therapists and other professionals with expertise in working with people with disabilities.

Under the national programme Ensuring a Modern, Safe and Accessible Educational Environment, facilities for extracurricular activities will be equipped at the National Palace of Children, at centres for personal development support and in student dormitories. For the first time, schools will be able to apply for funding to buy sports equipment.

Plans also include an electronic platform to digitalize early screening assessment and the analysis of the development of three-year-old children. This will make it possible to identify risks in cognitive, language, social-emotional and motor development at an early stage, which is important for providing proper support and preventing later learning difficulties, social isolation and educational marginalization.

The national programme Skills in Focus will provide conditions for developing modern skills in line with the challenges of new realities. A new module under it, Positive Attitudes, expands and builds on the use of the Morning Story, Morning Fairytale and Morning Meeting teaching practices, with at least 50 kindergartens and schools due to take part.

Another module, Games Laboratory, provides for the creation of a national and international centre for validating and promoting game-based practices and for building a professional network that shares the understanding of play as a core mechanism for learning and development.

The national programme Bulgaria - Educational Routes will be aimed at broadening the scope of classes held in cultural and scientific institutions, as well as educational routes for Bulgarian schools abroad, private schools and centres for special educational needs. It will also support the development of materials and resources promoting Bulgarian traditions, way of life, culture and history in order to encourage learning through experience and reinforce acquired knowledge.

The other programmes that have already proved successful will also continue this year. They are System for National Standardized External Assessment, Student Olympiads and Competitions, It Is Nice in Kindergarten, ICT in the System of Pre-School and School Education, Qualification of Teaching Specialists, Together for Every Child, Optimizing the Internal Staff Structure, Innovations in Action, Textbooks, Teaching Sets and Teaching Aids, Support for Municipalities for Educational Desegregation, No Free Period, Native Language and Culture Abroad, Vocational Education and Training, Training for IT Skills and Career, Prevention and Rehabilitation of Teaching Specialists, The Untold Stories of the Bulgarians, Together in the Arts and in Sport, Study and Preservation of the Traditions and History of the Bulgarian Army, Road Safety and Future for Talents.

The Ministry of Education and Science has also launched the first application campaign for State and municipal schools under the project Educational Routes in Bulgaria, implemented through the Education Programme 2021-2027 and co-financed by the European Union.