Limiting the culture of learning, more practical tasks, time for acquiring skills. These are the main goals of the ideas for changes in the high school stage, which were presented by the Minister of Education and Science Krasimir Valchev at a press conference at the MES. The proposals have been published for public discussion on the ministry's website.
In parallel with the work on comprehensive changes in the curricula and with the proposed amendments to the Preschool and School Education Act, the MES is taking steps to give a faster effect, said Minister Valchev.
With regard to education in the high school stage, the MES proposes an increase in general education classes. “The goal is to be able to provide children with the broad basis of knowledge so necessary in a changing world. "We are only talking about increasing the number of hours, not the content of the curriculum," emphasized Minister Valchev. He explained that more time is given for the same curriculum material, which will provide an opportunity for in-depth learning and reflection - for more exercises, for consolidating knowledge, for negotiating, for analyzing and developing critical thinking.
The proposal of the Ministry of Education is to increase the hours of Bulgarian language and literature and mathematics in both high school stages. The total increase in Bulgarian language and literature will be by 12%, and in mathematics - by 25%. In addition, the total number of hours in each of the subjects in the field of natural sciences will increase in the first high school stage by 22%, in geography and economics - by 11%, and in history and civilizations - by 7%. More hours are also planned for civic education to focus on health education and the acquisition of competencies related to a first job, state social security, health insurance, social assistance, and the formation and management of public finances.
According to the minister, these changes will help with consistent learning, more in-depth cumulative learning, real application of what has been learned, but also with better preparation of students for exams. Teachers will have more time and more opportunities - to be able to stop when necessary, to explain further, to return, and not to rush through the material.
The proposed changes maintain the concept that part of the general education preparation should end in the 10th grade, and in the last two years, students should focus mainly on individual subjects that meet their interests and are related to their future realization. The idea of the Ministry of Education and Science is to have fewer hours for specialized and, accordingly, professional training in each of the classes of the second stage of high school (11th and 12th grades), which will reduce the content of the mandatory modules and will lower the degree of difficulty and scientific depth of the educational content.
At the same time, it is proposed to eliminate the currently existing interruption in the VIII grade in classes with intensive study of a foreign language of the study of history and civilizations, geography and economics, physics and astronomy, chemistry and environmental protection, biology and health education. The aim is to achieve a better balance in the workload of these subjects in the classes of the first stage of high school by including these hours in the VIII grade, while reducing foreign language teaching and specialized training at their expense.
It is planned to maintain the three main ways of studying a foreign language – intensive, extended and basic, by reducing the total number of hours for this preparation, without this preventing reaching the appropriate level at the end of secondary education. Intensive study of a foreign language in the VIII grade will be available only in schools where subjects in the respective language are studied in the IX and X grades. The remaining schools may offer study of a foreign language only in the extended or basic form.
The proposal is that all these changes in the framework curricula will come into force sequentially, and from 2026/2027 they will apply only to students in the VIII grade. In 2027/28 they will be applied to the VIII, IX and XI grades. From the 2028/29 academic year - for all students in the high school level.
Another change that is being discussed aims to limit the culture of learning and to help children acquire skills for life and the professions of the future. It envisages that the tests from the national external assessments for grades VII and X will include tasks that integrate other subjects. This will happen from the upcoming 2025/26 academic year in the mathematics tests, in which there will be 6 tasks from natural sciences, which students will solve using mathematical knowledge. Together with them, the total number of tasks in the HBO exam will be 24 for grade VII and 18 for grade X. In order for them to feel calm and have enough time to understand the conditions of the tasks, the working time will be increased by 15 minutes for seventh-graders (so the exam will have a total duration of 180 minutes), and for tenth-graders - by 30 minutes (their total time will be 120 minutes). The six tasks in natural sciences will include basic knowledge and competencies related to biology and health education, chemistry and environmental protection, physics and astronomy, geography and economics, as well as man and nature for seventh-graders.
During the press conference, sample tasks were presented that could be included in the tests of the national external assessments, and before the start of the new school year, models of the Higher Secondary Education Examination will also be published. “There will be no complex concepts, nor the need to memorize the theory in the relevant subjects for the Higher Secondary Education Examination“, emphasized Minister Valchev. According to him, the goal is not to make it difficult for students, but to take smooth steps towards learning with understanding by solving practical tasks that will be necessary and useful for them in the future in life.