Category: Bulgarian news

Ztara Zagora in Bulgaria

Stara Zagora is a city in southern Bulgaria, one of the main economic centers in the country. It is the sixth-largest city in Bulgaria, located in the historical region of Thrace. The population of Star Zagora is circa 215 000 inhabitants.

The city is home to the oldest Bulgarian theater in Thrace – Geo Milev Drama Theater, the ancient Forum of Augusta Trayana, and 14 km from the city center is the national spa resort Stara Zagora Mineral Baths. In 1925 the second opera in the country after Sofia was opened – the South Bulgarian Opera (today the State Opera Stara Zagora). The city also houses the Museum of Religions and the Neolithic Dwellings Museum.

Augusta Trayana Ancient Forum Complex is located about 200 meters from the Historical Museum and keeps the remains of an ancient scene from Roman times, which today, especially in the warmer months of the year, comes to life and becomes a center of cultural life in Stara Zagora.

The city has several attractive museums and galleries among which are:

“Zagorka” Brewery houses a museum of the beer –starazagora.love/bg/have-fun/museum-of-the-beer
Art Gallery – Stara Zagora – artgallerystz.com
Museum of Religions – www.rimstz.eu/en/architectural-complex-museum-of-religions

The defenders of Stara Zagora is another important landmark of the city – a park and a majestic monument, built in honor of the battle of Stara Zagora, which took place on July 31, 1877.

Stara Zagora Mineral Baths is the place where you can combine a fruitful holiday in the mountains with the therapeutic properties of mineral water.

Information about the upcoming events in the city can be found on the following weblinks: starazagora.love/bg/have-fun/ and www.starazagora.bg/bg/kulturen-kalendar and www.starazagora.bg/bg/sabitiya/.

Bulgarian news

Bulgaria, the great opportunities for your holidays

Post author By enneproject
Post date 30 July 2020
No Comments on Bulgaria, the great opportunities for your holidays

Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is one of the most ancient cities in Europe, it was inhabited since at least the 30th millennium BC. Sofia has many natural and cultural landmarks.
One of the symbols not just of Sofia but of Bulgaria itself, is the massive, awe-inspiring Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. It was built between 1882 and 1912 in memory of the 200,000 Russian soldiers who died fighting for Bulgaria’s independence during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78). In the Aleksander Nevski Crypt is Bulgaria’s biggest and best collection of religious icons from the last millennium, brought from churches all over the country.
Regarded as the oldest preserved building in Sofia, the Sveti Georgi Rotunda, in the courtyard between the Sheraton Hotel and the Presidency, dates from the 4th century AD. This circular Roman structure, also known as the Church of St George, was largely rebuilt in the 6th century after being knocked about by invading Huns.
The murals inside were painted on three layers between the 10th and 14th centuries. You’re also allowed to wander around the unlabelled Roman ruins behind the church.

The Church of Sveta Sofia is the oldest Orthodox church in the Bulgarian capital, to which it eventually gave its name. The church fell victim to invading hordes, fires and earthquakes several times over the centuries, and after a devastating 1858 earthquake, the building, then used as a mosque, was abandoned. The present, rather sober, red-brick structure is mostly 19th century, and was restored as a church in the early 20th century.

If you are interested in art, then you can visit the National Art Gallery which holds one of the country’s most comprehensive collections of Bulgarian art, with several galleries full of mainly 19th and 20th century paintings and sculptures. The National Gallery for Foreign Art – Square 500, also located in the city center, hosts an eclectic assemblage of international artworks on display.

The Ivan Vazov National Theatre is Bulgaria’s national theatre, as well as the oldest and most authoritative theatre in the country and one of the important landmarks of Sofia. It is located in the centre of the city, with the facade facing the City Garden.

Along with the beautiful monuments, in Sofia you can find many green parks and relaxing gardens.

Borisova gradina or Knyaz-Borisova gradina is the oldest and best known park in Sofia. Its construction and arrangement began in 1884 and it is named after Bulgarian Tsar Boris III. The newest addition to the park is the Rosarium which opened in 2019 and accommodates more than 2000 roses.

Another green park within the heart of the city is “Yuzhen park” (translates as South Park). The idea of the park was to create the illusion of an extention of Vitosha Mountain. Visitors can enjoy a stunning view of the mountain from specially designed open areas. The main entrance to the park meets the end of Vitosha Boulevard.

Shopping in Sofia
The main shopping areas in Sofia centre on Vitosha Boulvard, Graf Ignatiev Street and Rakovski Street. The Tsentralni Hali (Central Food Halls), on Maria Luisa Blvd, is a well-organised bazaar, open daily. There is also a large book market at Slaveikov square, near the National Theatre.
Souvenirs such as reproduction icons, jewellery, ceramics, wooden items, embroidered tablecloths and lace are for sale at stalls at Alexander Nevski square. Also worth investigating for souvenirs are the shops in the subway between the Central Universal Store (TSUM) and the Balkan Sheraton Hotel, the subway of the presidency and the ground-floor shop of the National Ethnographic Museum.
While in Sofia, don’t forget to taste some of the Bulgarian cuisine famous dishes such as Tarator, Shkembe chorba, Musaka, Sarmi and Banitsa.
You can find useful information about tourist attractions, transportation and places to eat at the following website: www.visitsofia.bg
For upcoming events in Sofia you can check the municipal calendar: www.sofia.bg
Upcoming festivals are announced here: fest-bg.com

Bulgarian news

National Students’ Competition “BEST BUSINESS IDEA”

Post author By enneproject
Post date 30 June 2020
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In Bulgaria, under the patronage of the Ministry of Education and Science, Vocational education and training directorate, the National Competition “Best Business Idea” for the academic year 2019/2020 was held.

The annual competition usually takes place during the period January – April, but due to the emergency situation caused by the COVID – 19 pandemic, the preliminary qualification phase could be performed only in the beginning of June. European Center for Quality, partner in the ENNE project, participated in the evaluation commission assessing the students’ ideas.

The main goals of the competition are:

Strengthening the motivation of the students from vocational high schools in economics around the country for full comprehension of the learning material, based on the interdisciplinary approach and entrepreneurship skills.
Providing students the opportunity for creative expression of the acquired knowledge, skills and competences in the field of entrepreneurship.
Stimulating the innovative thinking, creativity and the teamwork of the students.
Encouraging the development of entrepreneurial culture and entrepreneurial thinking and behavior.
Encouraging the attitude for continuous and individual studying by stimulating their competitive spirit.
Encouraging the cooperation between vocational high schools, the business and higher educational establishments.

Participants in the competition can be students from XI and XII grades of the country vocational high schools in economics. The competition goes through three rounds. The first round is being held internally at the school and it is divided into two stages – anonymous, during which students present their ideas through written form, and public, where students present and defend their business ideas verbally. Only the students ranked on first and second place at each school advance to the next, pre–qualification round.

This stage is again anonymous, the students are sending their business ideas through mail, and their personal data is sealed in a separate non-transparent envelope. Usually more than 60 ideas reach this stage. The members of the commission, that evaluates the ideas that have reached preliminary qualification, comprises: representatives of the Institute of Entrepreneurship of the University of the National and World Economy, business representatives and teachers of economic subjects from vocational high schools of economics. Experts from the European Center for Quality Ltd. often participate as business representatives in the evaluation commission. Only the 24 participants who receive the highest average scores from the evaluators reached the final national round of the competition.

During the final stage the students will be divided into 6 teams of 4 participants and will work on a challenge, drawn at random from several possible topics. This year the final round will take place in Petrich city, and the competition will be hosted by the Vocational School of Economics and Tourism “Prof. Dr. Asen Zlatarov”.

In 2019, the idea of making and selling eco utensils such as forks, knifes, boxes for food and bottles, made of resin became the winner in the Bulgarian national students competition “Best Business Idea”. It was held in Sofia and participants were 24 of the best students-entrepreneurs from all over the country. We look forward to learn what interesting ideas the finalists will work on this year.

Bulgarian news

The pandemic did not have a negative impact on the matriculation exam results in Bulgaria

Post author By enneproject
Post date 30 June 2020
No Comments on The pandemic did not have a negative impact on the matriculation exam results in Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science presented at a press conference a summary of the results from the matriculation exams in Bulgarian Language & Literature and Mathematics held in the beginning of June. During the conference Minister Krasimir Valchev stated that “Transforming knowledge into skills, preparing children for life and forming critical thinking capacities are among the priorities of Bulgarian education.

All our efforts are aimed at this – ensuring a good educational environment for children and improving their results”. Almost 49,000 students sat the matriculation exam in Bulgarian Language and Literature. The exam was held in 5,162 rooms of 722 schools in the country in observance of the anti-epidemic measures and under video surveillance.

In order to make students calmer, the Ministry of Education and Science removed from the exam material the literary works taught during the second term of the school year, when remote teaching began. 37,116 twelve-graders were admitted to a second mandatory exam. The biggest number of them – 11,710, chose to sit an exam in English.

Girls achieved better results than boys. Excellent grades amount to about 15%, while last year they were 10%. In terms of regions, the highest grades are in Sofia-City, Smolyan, Varna, Gabrovo, and Veliko Tarnovo.

Compared to last year results, there has been an increase in excellent grades in the Bulgarian Language and Literature exam:

	EXCELLENT GRADES	POOR GRADES
2020	6 283	3 764
2019	5 062	4 302

Source: MES

The average success rate has also increased as compared to the previous year:

	AVERAGE SUCCESS RATE IN THE BLL EXAM
2020	GOOD 4.20
2019	GOOD 4.06

Source: MES

	AVERAGE SUCCESS RATE IN THE SECOND MANDATORY EXAM
2020	VERY GOOD 4.87
2019	VERY GOOD 4.67

Source: MES

This year, more 12-graders sat the optional matriculation exams. The reason for this is the universities’ decisions to admit students based on their results from the state matriculation exams. The change only applies to this year’s admission.

The school graduates who got 100 points in one exam are 124. 4,525 graduates or almost 1,500 more than last year got excellent grades in both exams. This year there was one student with four maximum results, seven with 3 maximum results and 73 with 2 maximum results.

The analysis shows that this year the results are better in nine out of fourteen subjects. There are higher results from the exams in Bulgarian Language and Literature, History and Civilization, Physics and Astronomy, Geography and Economics, Biology and Health Education, and in foreign languages – German, English, Russian and Italian.

There has been an improvement in student’s ability to formulate a thesis on a given topic, but they encounter difficulties in obtaining and extracting information from a text, and in particular in summarizing the essence of a text, said Evgenia Kostadinova, Director of Directorate “Pre-School and School Educational Content” at MES.

The school graduates with the highest results will get an additional stipend of BGN 100 per month (approx. 50 euro) if they continue their education in professional areas important to the Bulgarian economy – pedagogy, physics, chemistry and engineering. The students entitled to such payment will be the ones with top 10% in grades from the state matriculation exam in Bulgarian Language and Literature, and a grade from the second exam equal or exceeding the country’s average. The stipend will apply for students admitted in priority majors in universities if their success rate was equal to or higher than the country’s average BLL success rate and are among the top 30% results in the second exam in Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, or Chemistry and Environmental Protection. The additional stipend will be provided starting from the forthcoming 2020/2021 school year.

“We consider the results and the session successful. The system managed to mobilise. We had a successful session in unexpected conditions. Both the students and schools did well. We had no organizational problems”, said the Deputy Minister of Education and Science Tanya Mihaylova.

Data source: Ministry of Education (https://www.mon.bg/bg/)

Bulgarian news

Industrial Internet of Things VET Network

Post author By enneproject
Post date 30 June 2020
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ENNE Associate partner Institute for Postgraduate Studies (IPS), Bulgaria implements the project “Industrial Internet of Things VET Network” (IIoTNET), an ERASMUS+, KA3 project lasting 24 months (2019-2021).

The IIoTNet project is designed in order to raise awareness and contribute to developing human capital, through upskilling and reskilling of employees among European Companies (including micro companies and SMEs), professionals and VET providers about the potential of IIoT technologies and to give evidence of their applications.

The aim of the project is to create a VET Network with certification scheme for professionals, being IIoT developers or users or sales workers, and training them to adapt and adopt a new common framework of best practices of the modern IIoT know-how in order to be able to combine effectively knowledge and fundamental principles from various areas of expertise of cutting edge technologies in the IIoT sector and gain a competitive advantage in their carrier path.

Specific project objectives are:

to support the uptake and mainstreaming of IIoT VET training and to promote the integration of talent development in collaboration with external stakeholders
to create sustainable institutional structures and ICT tools enabling IIoT training and stakeholder co-creation in talent development;
to build IIoT VET providers teaching capacities for delivering innovative training in view of building trainees’ employability skills in fast growing industrial sectors.

Project results

During the project, the partnership expects to achieve the following results:

Strengthen cooperation among VET providing partners in the IIoTNet through joint strategic planning for international cooperation and development projects for mutual leaning and capacity building
Design and development of specialized social media network for management and operation of IIoTNet. It is planned to use network platform for fostering cooperation not only among partners but involving VET providers that do not yet contribute or benefit from European cooperation.
System for organizational analysis of VET providers and action planning will be used to identify inefficiencies and streamlining of provided services, including level of participation in international cooperation
Evaluation of IIoT trainees’ progress against IIoT Body of Knowledge. The definition of units of learning outcomes and their descriptions will be carried out in compliance with ECVET principles and technical specifications and the tools developed by EU ECVET network.
Development of IIoT Certification scheme
The EU developed model of Logical Framework will be used for designing IIoTNet objectives and activities considering existing risks.
To develop and disseminate Guidelines for mobility, lifelong learning and EU funding in the field of IIoT that will present best practices and lessons learned in implementation of IIoTNet.
1-day trainings will be orgnise in each partner country of VET providers’ representatives that still not contribute or benefit from European cooperation on effective use of IIoTNet and thus to improve their networking capacity and their access to EU funds.

The project involves 9 project partners from 6 European countries: Bulgaria, Latvia, Italy, Sweden, Greece, and Cyprus.

Partners and contacts:

Bulgarian news

How is the coronavirus affecting the Bulgarian schools?

Post author By enneproject
Post date 1 April 2020
No Comments on How is the coronavirus affecting the Bulgarian schools?

Like elsewhere in the world the situation in Bulgaria is dynamic due to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. Bulgaria is one of the countries that introduced a strategic set of measures for limiting the coronavirus spread as soon as the first cases occurred in early March. The state emergency committee actively seeks and analyses good practices that worked around the world, transfers and adapts them for the national context. Every few days new or stricter measures are introduced.

All schools and kindergartens in the country are closed since 13th March in hopes of mitigating the spread of the coronavirus disease. Each school had the liberty to organize their distance learning process individually considering the available resources. Most schools have already used the support of different electronic platforms for synchronous and asynchronous learning most popular among which are: Shkolo – 1271 schools use the platform; Ucha.se – has more than 16 000 video lessons; Оffiсе 365 from Microsoft and G Suite from Google.

The Ministry of Education has created more than 865 000 profiles of all students and teachers in Miсrоsft Tеаms in order to facilitate the online learning process. The Ministry has also created a National electronic library for teachers available at: e-learn.mon.bg.

The Library is organized as a repository of resources for e-learning such as author’s educational, didactic and methodological materials for working in electronic environment – video tutorials, training programs, innovative methodologies, tests, short films, exercises, entertaining pedagogy, presentations and especially projects related to self-study in the electronic environment. All shared materials should correspond to the national educational standards and curricula.

Two of the biggest publishing houses in the country announced that they would guarantee free access the electronic version of all textbooks they published for the grades 1-10. Electronic diaries, e-mails, social media are also used in order to provide students with instructions how to better prepare their self-learning activities and homework exercises. The school directors have the task to analyze the adapted for electronic education school programme and make sure that the workload for students from 1-7th grade is up to 6 hours per day and for 8-12 grades up to 7 hours per day (part of these hours are not spent in the electronic environment). Additional learning resources should be foreseen outside the planned lessons time.

The distance learning in Bulgaria will continue at least by 13 April 2020. For the moment, although students perform tests they do not receive formal grades. Teachers are collecting data on the level of involvement and active participation of students, which may be used later in the formation of the final grades for the school year.

The role of the parents in the current situation is crucial. They should constantly keep in touch with the teachers; follow their instructions to the students and oversee their proper fulfilment. Parents should provide all essential conditions for productive e-learning environment: ensure a quiet place, equip the students with necessary technical devices such as tablet/laptop, headphones, microphone, good internet connection, etc. and should supervise their usage.

Bulgarian news

eCON, a European practice for future young economists

Post author By enneproject
Post date 6 March 2020
No Comments on eCON, a European practice for future young economists

On 01.10.2019 started the Project “eCON – European practice for future young economists” involving two of the associated partners of the ENNE Project:

Vocational High School in Economics “G. S. Rakovsky”, Yambol, Bulgaria;
National High School in Finance and Business, Sofia, Bulgaria.

The project is implemented in a consortium with one more vocational school and a foundation. The project stipulates the sending of a group of 24 students from 10-11 grade (8 students and one teacher from each school) from Economics and Management, Business Administration and Trade specialties from the three vocational high schools to a two-week practice in Barcelos and Portugal in the summer of 2020.
The mobility participants will develop and build on their key competences and skills in enterprise economics and in particular on various business performance indicators of the firm. Through the practical exercises in a real working environment, eCON project will result in improving the skills and competences of the students for:

Analyzing the quality of products and services and producing comparative analyses;
Performing economic analysis of volume and structure of sales in SMEs and understanding the process of forming profit targets;
Developing work organization hierarchy and mapping the main processes in SMEs;
Preparing financial analyses according to different indicators and assessment of the financial state of real films and ideas for improving it;
Assimilating financial reporting practices according to International Accounting Standards (IAS, IFRS) and their practical implementation by solving Portuguese case studies;
Planning the creation of new products/services in real firms;
Planning the marketing of SMEs.

These acquired practical skills and competences will be certified from the receiving organisation, an employer reference, as well as Europass Mobility document, which will expand students’ career opportunities. By developing specific skills through practice, students will become more competitive and adept at the needs of the business and with increased prospects for realization on the labor market.