EDUCATION IN NUMBERS

Education Costs

Public expenditure on education in Bulgaria, as a percentage of GDP, is permanently below the European average level and cannot reach 5%.

In the period 2017-2021, public and private expenditure on education increased from 4.3 to 6.5 billion. The largest amount of funds is allocated to higher education (BGN 1.8 billion), followed by secondary education (BGN 1.4 billion) and pre-school education (BGN 1.2 billion). About BGN 1 billion are allocated annually for primary and lower secondary education.

Graduates

The number of graduates of secondary and higher education, as well as those acquiring a degree of professional qualification in vocational training centers, is constantly decreasing, primarily in connection with the negative demographic trends in the country.

There is a steady tendency for specialists with a humanitarian profile (business and administration, law, arts, languages, etc.) to leave higher education institutions predominantly, at the expense of economic and technical specialties, which are the most deficient in the labor market.

After the serious decline in 2022, from 2023 there is again an increase in the number of secondary school graduates, and the number of graduates from vocational high schools is a positive trend.

For the last five years, there has been a serious decline in interest in acquiring a degree of professional qualification in vocational training centers (VETs).

In the period 2016-2021, the number of those who participated in some type of self-study also sharply decreased. Women, employees, residents of large cities, people aged 35-54 are more often directed to this type of self-improvement.

Employed in education

There is a serious ageing of the workforce in the education sector. 35% of those employed in the education system are over 55 years old, and another 31% are between 45 and 54 years old. Young teachers (25-34 years old) are only 13%.

76% of those employed in education have higher education, 21% have secondary education, and 3% have primary or lower (this is primarily service, non-teaching staff).

Quality of education

According to the latest results of the international PISA test, which tests the skills of 15-year-old students to apply the acquired knowledge in practice, Bulgaria ranks last in the EU in mathematics, and in reading - second-to-last. Bulgarian students have drastically lower results in mathematics and reading compared to recent years. In 2022, they return to their weakest performance since 2006, which shows that the level of Bulgarian education is the same as 16 years ago. Bulgaria, however, follows global trends, where the level of education as a whole is falling.

The share of Bulgarian students below the critical threshold of achievement in the three areas studied is alarmingly high – 54% in mathematics, 53% in reading and 48% in natural sciences. The data show that the cognitive competencies of more than half of the students are not adequate to solve everyday problems.

In mathematics, the Bulgarian ninth-graders scored 417 points, in reading – 404 points, and in natural sciences – 421 points, with only Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia, and the Philippines having lower results.

In parallel, the results of the matriculation exams in Bulgarian language and literature show that after the continuous decline in recent years, reaching the bottom in 2023 (average grade 3.93), in 2024 there is a kind of boom – the highest average grade of all time (4.32).