The protest of the universities was not so much about money, but against the lack of adequacy

„This day of closed doors is a protest, which is not so much related to labor remuneration as to the lack of a long-term targeted, adequate to the realities, policy in higher education in the last three years.“

This was stated in the Euronews Primetime studio by the chairman of the Council of Rectors, Prof. Miglena Temelkova, who is also the rector of the Higher School of Telecommunications and Posts, and Kalin Kostov – chairman of the Association for Quality in Higher Education.

“In the last three years, we have witnessed how piecemeal reforms are carried out, how changes in laws are initiated from today to tomorrow. After that, these bills go to the National Assembly or we give up on them," Prof. Temelkova pointed out.

We lack a vision of where we want to take Bulgarian higher education. Several strategic core policies are missing that concern the entire system, not individual universities.

“Precisely for this reason, the universities closed their doors today, because it is time for the state to truly enter into its role as the principal of the state universities and to outline together the vision for the development of Bulgarian higher education. "It is not right to initiate laws without the expertise of the academic community," emphasized Prof. Temelkova.

“We are witnessing legislative decisions that do not correspond to financial commitments. I immediately give an example – the adopted amendments to the amount of teachers' salaries are not included in the state budget, Kalin Kostov stressed.

The money that is for scientific and research activity and that should be no less than 10% of that for the support of studies in each university, is many times less and it is not only for this calendar year, but for a long time decades old at least.

"That is, here are measures that the law provides, but the executive power refuses to implement, and this attitude towards us, the people of science, clearly shows that the words that they inserted into the Constitution, that science and education are a national priority, are not backed by real actions”, Kostov added.

“The pain of the academic community is the lack of policies in the field of higher education,” emphasized Prof. Temelkova and gave as an example the lack of policies for turning Bulgaria into an attractive educational destination and a country that exports higher education, as well as the lack of incentives for the engagement of business with universities.