Ivaylo Kalushev was only once at the private school near Sofia, where the murdered 15-year-old boy studied. This was said in "The Day Begins" on BNT by the outgoing Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev. Kalushev gave a lecture about the caves. The school has not organized children's camps with him. Valchev also said that there were other children who were absent for a long time, but this will become clear once the inspection is completed.
Regarding the 15-year-old child who did not attend school, Valchev said:
“The inspection has not yet been completed, but the initial data we have is that the child did not attend school for a long time. During the last school year, 2024-2025, he had 114 days during which he was absent, out of a total of 170, which is nearly two-thirds. The school did not record the absences, the mechanism for covering and effectively integrating the children was not activated. In this way, the school has become an accomplice in the failure to exercise the child's right to education.“
Vulchev also admitted a lapse in control:
„Yes, the Regional Department of Education is being criticized in this case, since it did not carry out control. There are 98 schools in the Sofia region. The Regional Department itself has included an inspection of this school in its plan for this year. A planned inspection. It may sound unconvincing, but... I didn't believe it at first, either, but that's the truth. The fact is that it cannot carry out sufficiently intensive control of all schools. How can I say, there is also a lesser tendency to carry out control in private schools. It is assumed that in general there are more responsible employees. There are two private schools in the Sofia region. The other private school is in Chelopech and is the school with the highest results. In general, private schools have higher results. There are concentrated children who are more supported by their parents."
The Minister of Education noted that in this case it is an exception to the rule.
"In practice, it turns out that in this private school children were paid not to go to school. Writing absences, compulsory education, it was not invented to harass children and parents, it was invented to guarantee the right to education of children. The right to education of children is realized through the principle of compulsivity. Unfortunately, we also have quite a few state municipal schools that cover up absences. We have always been uncompromising towards this phenomenon."
Regarding the concealment of absences, Valchev commented:
"In the case of private schools, I can't tell you, with public and municipal schools, so that they don't lose students or simply because they don't make enough efforts to try to ensure daily attendance every day. It is very difficult, especially when we are talking about some communities, to get the children to visit them every day, so mediators were also engaged, teams or mediators go to the homes every day, literally, as they tell me, they wake them up, they drive them to school."
140 children are enrolled in the private school, but there is information that some of them do not come to class regularly.
"I am returning to the case of the private school, we have to clarify the reasons, to see if this is a mass practice. I do not have the full information yet. Yes, we have information about other children. The school did not record the absences in the diary, in the national electronic system. There are 140 children in the school, most of them have attended regularly, but there are other cases in which non-attendance was concealed."
Valchev pointed out that the private school cannot be punished, except through deregistration, but the decision will be up to the next education minister.
"We control both private and state municipal schools. This is a school that is registered. We checked the registration process. It formally met the registration criteria, but I say formally because they are documentary. A school guarantees that it has all the prerequisites for implementing the educational process, but from then on it must comply with the regulations. Colleagues will have a comprehensive report, the next minister will decide on the basis of this report what measures to take. There is one inequality, which is that we cannot punish the private school. The state and municipal schools can initiate disciplinary proceedings against the director, dismiss him, request disciplinary proceedings against the teachers. The private school can only be approached with the last resort - deregistration. I say again, the decision is up to the next minister. If I had to make a decision, it is still not entirely responsible to speak without having the comprehensive report, but the data is disturbing enough. From one point of the educational system, from one point of the regulatory framework. I said yesterday that half of the teachers are unqualified. It is probably school policy. We see that some of them have professions that are exotic from one point of an educational institution. Very different. The teaching staff is more like a circle of friends. The school has classes, there is a weekly schedule, there are additional activities based on interests. I am cautious before I see the full report. "
Vulchev pointed out that the main problem with the private school near Sofia is that not all teachers there are qualified.
"Each curriculum for each subject for each grade states what topics are studied, what knowledge, skills, relationships are acquired, the so-called competencies. Each teacher has freedom in teaching methods. But he must achieve these results that are set out in the curriculum. At the moment we have no data that the school has not implemented training according to the curriculum."
Regarding a possible lecture by Ivaylo Kalushev at the school, Valchev said:
„The information we have is that he only had one visit, which was in the form of a talk, outside of class. There was no constant interaction between the school and his organization. The Ministry controls the school, just to note, but it does not control private schools“.