The Ministry of Education proposes reducing the hours for studying a foreign language for students in eighth grade. Thus, from 18, the planned hours will be 16.
According to Education Minister Krasimir Valchev, this will preserve the opportunity for students in language high schools to prepare. In addition, MES is considering dropping the National External Assessment in 10th grade.
„We have proposed changes to the framework curricula. We had conversations with directors of language high schools and many of them believe that the changes are useful for language high schools”, commented Krasimir Valchev during his visit to the "Raina Knyaginya" Vocational High School of Clothing and Catering in Stara Zagora.
Currently, 18 out of 35 hours in language high schools are only in language, respectively, students do not study history, physics, chemistry, biology.
"We are trying to eliminate this interruption in the curricula. On the other hand, we have proposed that not all children start from scratch, that is, that there should be an opportunity in the eighth grade to group students depending on the level of language proficiency“, pointed out Valchev and added that currently a large part of the eighth graders in language high schools "literally rest" during half of the school year, since they have studied English from early childhood.
The Minister explained that what the Ministry of Education is proposing is to limit language training to a certain extent in order to provide differentiated opportunities for students and to facilitate programs for specialized training. This will allow more time to be planned for general education subjects.
“The discussion of the new educational structure also includes two other discussions, one of which is for completing primary education”, Krasimir Valchev added. According to him, there is a very high degree of agreement that it should end later.
"The other issue is for the national external assessment and the state matriculation exams. If we have a shorter high school stage, the question is whether there should be external assessment in the tenth grade,“ he pointed out.
In conclusion, Valchev commented that the main challenges are related to the curricula and improving the results, especially in mathematics and natural sciences, but also in Bulgarian language and functional literacy.
In this regard, the minister emphasized that the proposed changes aim to balance the curricula.
"This is related to the curricula, assessment and additional training and qualification of teachers, but each of these topics is big in itself," Valchev also said.