September 22, 2026September 25, 2026

Statement of Center Amalipe on Proposed Amendments to the Pre-school and School Education Act – September 2026

The Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance Amalipe is a non-governmental organisation working on intercultural education, educational integration and school education since 2002. At present, the organisation coordinates a network of 259 schools throughout the country (the majority of which have a high concentration of vulnerable groups), as well as an informal network of more than 400 educational mediators.

We welcome the renewed debate on amendments to the Pre-school and School Education Act. We believe that incorporating topics such as language support, education in virtues and a number of other issues proposed in most of the bills amending the Pre-school and School Education Act could lead to better and higher-quality education that develops responsible citizens. At the same time, we are concerned about some of the proposals put forward. There is also an obvious lack of important topics such as desegregation, educational integration and others that were discussed in 2025 but are absent from the current texts.

More specifically, we draw attention to:

1. Language Support and the Preparatory Language Class

It is a fact that (tens of) thousands of pupils (it is unlikely that anyone can provide the exact number, and this is part of the problem) enter Year 1 without a good command of Bulgarian, which is one of the major obstacles to their success and a prerequisite for their rapid dropping out of school. This concerns children of migrants and refugees, Bulgarian citizens returning from abroad, as well as some families belonging to Bulgaria’s traditional ethnic minorities. At present, the scale of the problem is unclear: no institution collects information on pupils’ level of proficiency in Bulgarian upon entering the school education system.

It is a positive fact that the issue of language support has been consistently present in numerous different bills amending the Pre-school and School Education Act, from May 2025 to September 2026. There is public consensus on the provision of language support. At the same time, we draw attention to challenges such as:

diagnosis of proficiency in Bulgarian and of the need for additional language support is necessary, based on the actual level of language proficiency rather than mother tongue/ethnicity: it would be a serious risk if children whose mother tongue is different from Bulgarian were automatically directed towards forms of language support and a language class. Many Roma and Turkish children have no language-related difficulties when entering Year 1. Conversely, many children whose mother tongue is Bulgarian but who have lived abroad encounter serious difficulties with standard Bulgarian upon returning to Bulgaria. An objective assessment of the pupil’s language level is necessary before directing the pupil to language support and a language class. The latter should be used only as a last resort;
equally important is the maximum inclusion of the child/pupil in the mainstream class and limiting the risk that the preparatory class, individual or distance-learning form may turn into permanent separation and de facto segregation;
it is particularly important not to allow the language class to be repeated: separating pupils of first-grade age into a separate language class would often be associated with their stigmatisation and could be a prerequisite for their rapid dropping out of school. This would be even more likely if a pupil repeated the language class, because the age at which they enter Year 1 would become significantly different from that of the other first-year pupils (those who repeated the language class would be 9 years old). With actual participation in the activities/classes of the preparatory class, the pupil would acquire a sufficient level of Bulgarian. This is also demonstrated by the practice in Western European countries, where Roma and Turkish children from Bulgaria often migrate: within a few months, they easily acquire German, French, English or another official language;
placement in a language class should be permitted only where the child has not attended kindergarten: following the amendments to the Pre-school and School Education Act in 2020, pre-school education has been compulsory and free from the age of four. If the child has attended a preparatory group/class, they should not be placed in a preparatory language class. The latter should be permitted only in cases of systematic absence from the preparatory group/class.

2. Introduction of a Compulsory Subject “Virtues and Religions”

There can hardly be any dispute that pupils should develop virtues: the persistent examples of violence in the classroom (so-called “bullying”) and outside school clearly point to the need to develop greater tolerance within educational institutions. At the same time, strictly confessional education (religious instruction) does not enjoy the support of the majority of parents and educators. It can and should be taught as optional lessons, but only where there is a clearly expressed desire on the part of parents and pupils and in the absence of “unhealthy competition” between different religious denominations. The latter could easily turn into ethnic tensions – something that our society managed to avoid during the transition to democracy. The risk of tensions between pupils and parents belonging to different religious denominations and ethnic groups is real and must be avoided by every possible means.

With regard to education in virtues, we propose:

– the introduction of a compulsory subject of Virtues and expanding opportunities for the study of religions as optional lessons/an elective subject: the compulsory subject of Virtues should form part of the entire range of subjects comprising civic education. We support the idea that this subject should be studied throughout all stages of school education.

At the same time, the study of religions through confessional programmes/religious instruction should be retained as an elective subject/optional lessons where there is a clearly expressed desire on the part of parents and pupils. The State can and should create sufficient opportunities for the study of confessional programmes concerning the main religions practised in Bulgaria – Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam and others;

it is particularly important to avoid interreligious and interethnic tensions: in this respect, retaining confessional programmes solely as electives is an important step towards preventing “unhealthy competition” between different religious denominations;
it is entirely reasonable for the possible subject of Virtues to include topics on tolerance, virtues among different ethnic groups and religions, calendar and family celebrations in different religions and many others, which would enable pupils to become familiar with the main religions practised in Bulgaria without this being done in a confessional manner and without setting religions and ethnic groups against one another;
we propose that, if the introduction of the subject “Virtues and Religions” is pursued, it should be preceded by piloting/testing in a relatively large number of schools, including in mixed regions. Only afterwards should wider implementation be undertaken, once any potential negative accompanying factors have been addressed.

3. Desegregation and Educational Integration

Educational segregation is one of the most serious problems hindering the development of Bulgarian education. A study by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights indicates that 60% of Roma children in Bulgaria study in classrooms exclusively with Roma classmates or with a majority of Roma classmates. A study by Center Amalipe and the Ministry of Education and Science from 2020 indicates that 120 segregated mainstream schools and 64 schools undergoing segregation operate in towns and cities. To these, we can add another 152 vocational upper secondary schools, almost half of which are already segregated, while the others are moving in this direction.

A positive development in the 2025 bill amending the Pre-school and School Education Act was the inclusion of the issues of prevention of segregation, desegregation and educational integration. These were proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science in the initial version of 23 May 2025, together with the topics of language support and the language class. Subsequently, the Council of Ministers’ bill of July 2025 replaced some of them (for example, “segregation” was replaced by the unconstitutional and absurd term “establishment of schools with Roma pupils”), while retaining others. For example, a legal definition of “educational integration” was introduced (“an institutional process in which educational stakeholders bearing ethnocultural specificities interact within a unified educational environment, while in the process of teaching, upbringing and socialisation they develop intercultural competences and shared civic values, while preserving their ethnocultural identity and receiving equal opportunities for social fulfilment”), the requirement was introduced for municipalities with segregated schools to implement a mandatory desegregation policy, Regional Departments of Education were required to restrict admissions to segregated urban schools, etc.

Unfortunately, none of the current bills provides for provisions on the prevention of segregation, desegregation and educational integration. We propose that these topics be included through:

a legal definition of segregation/segregated schools, desegregation and educational integration: the definitions of segregation and segregated schools and kindergartens should apply to towns and cities in which more than one educational institution operates. They should exclude small settlements where the ethnic composition of the population results in only minority children attending the only kindergarten or school;
the possibility of reducing the planned admission quota in segregated schools and kindergartens;
a requirement for all municipalities in which segregated schools and kindergartens operate to implement policies for the prevention of segregation and for desegregation.

4. Repeating a Year in the Primary Stage

The current text of the Pre-school and School Education Act does not allow pupils to repeat a year in the primary stage. The reasons behind this decision by the legislators have been discussed repeatedly: repeating a year at such an early age fosters a negative attitude towards the educational process as a whole, creates the pupil’s perception that “I cannot cope” and essentially opens the way to early school leaving. Where difficulties are identified, additional educational support is provided – through the Ministry of Education and Science’s systemic projects and in other ways. Nevertheless, the vast majority of primary school teachers believe that the absence of the possibility to repeat a year is a prerequisite for pupils’ subsequent poor results, despite the fact that both teachers and headteachers unanimously agree that when a pupil attends school regularly and does not have absences, they succeed in mastering the curriculum.

The 2025 bill amending the Pre-school and School Education Act proposed a gradual change to this model – the possibility of repeating Year 1 once. The current Bill No. 104/23 July 2026, submitted by D. Zdravkov, also provides for the possibility of repeating Year 1. The other bills do not contain this option.

We propose that the Pre-school and School Education Act retain its 2016 approach to this issue and not allow repetition in the primary classes. It is necessary to continue and diversify the additional support provided to pupils with identified difficulties. For example, instead of standard additional Bulgarian language lessons, additional interest-based activities, theatre and other activities in Bulgarian could be offered. They would support the proper acquisition of the official language while also being engaging for pupils.

5. Fixed Terms of Office for Headteachers

We categorically object to the proposed fixed terms of office for headteachers in some of the bills. Despite the arguments put forward in this direction, the experience of Center Amalipe’s work with hundreds of schools clearly indicates that relatively rapid changes of headteachers, especially in rural areas, will lead to a decline in the quality of education in many educational institutions. Developing school leaders is a slow process that is closely linked to the local environment – parents and local communities. Fixed terms of office would result in good school leaders leaving shortly after they have been developed and recognised by the local community.

6. Regulation of the Educational Mediator Profession

In recent years, educational mediators have proven to be one of the most important professions/positions in pre-school and school education. At present, more than 1,600 educational mediators work in schools and kindergartens. Their funding from the state budget (Article 52a of the Ordinance on the Financing of Institutions in the Pre-school and School Education System), as well as from Programme Education, is an extremely positive development. In 2025, the profession of “educational mediation” was also introduced. It is reasonable for the educational mediator to be included in the Pre-school and School Education Act: this corresponds to the actual needs of school education and provides greater sustainability for the position/profession.

Image: [Salah Darwish, Unsplash]