Parliament rejected at first reading the BSP's draft law that Bulgarian students study only one textbook on one subject. The proposal also received the support of the people's representatives from "Vazrazhdane" and "There is such a people", gathering 87 votes "for".
78 from GERB and PP-DB voted against, 7 from DPS PG, and 26 people's representatives abstained, 23 of them from Boyko Borisov's party. 20 of the non-members of parliamentary groups supported the request to limit the number of textbooks to one. Thus, the amendment was dropped, summarized dir.bg.
However, the topic has sparked heated debates and sexual slurs, as well as accusations of conflict of interest.
The debates got rough, after an occasion Tsoncho Ganev from "Vazrazhdane" took his words, who was motivated "because you raise the issue of latent homosexuals", who had their own representatives in the parliament and aimed at Yordan Ivanov and Yavor Bozhankov from PP-DB , naming one "Dancho Jelly". After Ganev called Yordanov "simple", the MP from the PP-DB protested from the rostrum to the Speaker of the National Assembly that she did not remove him from the hall for at least three days.
"Tsoncho Ganev allows himself to offend, twice, you only scare him with a remark, throw him out of the hall for three days,", Ivanov remarked to Raya Nazaryan.
And he turned to the MP from "Vazrazhdane": "And for calling me simple, you will receive a court summons. With the money with which I will convict you, I will place the flag of Ukraine in front of your party headquarters", threatened the DSB deputy. In response, the lawyer from "Vazrazhdane" Petar Petrov asked Nazaryan to remind lawyer Ivanov that in such a case the defendant Tsoncho Ganev "will have to prove whether Yordanov is innocent or not".
Toshko Yordanov from ITN replicated Bozhankov's statement against the ban on non-traditional sexual propaganda in school, accusing that periodically "some latent homosexual comes to the podium and begins to suffer for the ban on homosexual propaganda in schools and kindergartens". "I don't understand how a normal person can say, 'I want to have homosexual propaganda in school,'" exclaimed Toshko Yordanov, pointing out that the ban is supported by parents, teachers and the BOC, and "only a small group of sexually non-oriented citizens are against".
Insisting on one textbook for one subject is an old proposal of the BSP, which has been rejected by each of the last parliaments. The argument "against" of Elisaveta Belobradova from PP-DB and the former Minister of Education Krasimir Valchev from GERB is that this is how competition between publishing houses is broken, and teachers are the ones who can best judge which textbook to choose from among the many.
The deputy from PP-DB stated that textbooks are not mandatory for children, which was contested by the socialist Georgi Svilenski.
"And if they are not, why does every parent buy textbooks? And why do some collectives approve some content?" Svilenski asked her. He pointed out that the content is important, as is who publishes the textbook. "Let it be a publishing house approved by the Ministry of Education," urged Svilenski.
From "Revival" stated that they would support the BSP's proposal and pointed out that it is not the competition of publishers that is important, but the interest of children. They also boasted about their leader Kostadin Kostadinov's national studies textbook, which could also be approved.
Yavor Bozhankov pointed out that the big problem of our education is that it demands memorization from the children who could not cope with the performance of collective tasks according to the Western model. "Unification cannot be a solution. We cannot centralize these policies, the teachers are the ones who can judge", said the MP from PP-DB in support of the diversity of textbooks. He quickly moved on to the topic of banning non-traditional sexual orientation propaganda in schools alongside that of religion and politics.
"Imagine a malicious person whistleblowing because the class is talking about one of the topics. An armed state official with this law can ruin a teacher's career," Bozhankov declared once again against the voted "Revival" law. In his words, the bragging from the NA tribune of Kostadinov's textbook on national studies is precisely a typical example of propaganda.
This was followed by a reply from the leader of the PG of ITN Toshko Yordanov, who announced that "this bacchanalia with textbooks is not useful". The curriculum is disgusting and the textbooks are disgusting, he declared. Yordanov admitted that in the second reading they may propose that the textbooks be at least two, but at this stage they support the proposal of the BSP.
According to him, it is the Ministry of Education and Culture that should take responsibility for them, not the publishing houses and the teachers. On the exact opposite position was Lyuben Dilov-son from GERB, who admitted that he does not trust officials, but the judgment of teachers.
Manol Peykov, on the other hand, received a remark from him that he should declare a conflict of interest, since he is against one textbook on one subject, and his mother owns a book publishing house.
"We played that the state knows best for 45 years, because there was one textbook, everything should be the same - and one television, this is absurd," Peykov was indignant earlier and defended pluralism. "Your mother has a publishing house and that's why you're jumping on me," replied the MP from ITN. "I know that you are drawn to Russian culture, literature and music. I also respect her a lot, but you are more active than me because "Victory Day" I have it in a very good performance from you. Respect, you really performed it beautifully", Toshko Yordanov praised Manol Peykov's performance.