Bulgarian schools lack IT and foreign language teachers

17:24 Wed 02 Jan 2008 - Elitsa Savova

Schools in Bulgaria suffered a lack of qualified teachers in information technologies and foreign languages.

Vanya Kastreva, head of Sofia educational inspectorate said that there was a great fluctuation of teachers in these positions because qualified teachers were finding better-paid jobs.

The schools in Sofia managed to make both ends meet, but often the quality of education was unsatisfactory.

Sofia deputy mayor responsible for education Iordanka Fandukova said that once there was a list of teachers waiting to be appointed and now there was a lack of specialists. Most of the teachers in Sofia and elsewhere in the country were close to retirement or appointed on temporary contract. Young people were not interested in the profession at all. Low salaries were not the only reason, young people were not motivated to be teachers, she said as quoted by Dnevnik daily.

According to the new educational plans, more IT and foreign languages classes would be included in the study programmes of high schools, which increased the risk of chaos, caused by the lack of teachers, she said.

Bourgas regional educational inspectorate said that the problem was not that serious because there were constantly re-qualification courses.

Varna, Bourgas, Plovdiv and Pleven regional educational inspectorates also said that they did not have sufficient IT and language teachers.

Confederation of Labour Podkrepa representative Kroum Kroumov said that it was normal that IT and foreign language teachers would be tempted by higher salaries, as there was lack of employees with these skills in several sectors. Still, other teachers had nowhere to go and would remain at schools. Moreover, the salaries increased significantly and an experienced teacher would receive more than 550 leva monthly wage, he said.

Comments

Comments by pat leiper - 14:07 03 Jan 2008
	The lack of foreign language teachers is indeed a problem, especially in small towns and communities. I wonder then why older teachers are forced, by directors, to retire at the appropriate age. I found myself in that position. I believe I'm a good teacher. I've got numerous students through EFL exams and have taught students to speak english when other teachers gave up on them. The school in which I used to teach now employs language 'teachers' without any qualifications at all, rather than have a teacher of my age, 64. However, I now work, happily, in the private sector but I do miss the challenge of the larger mixed ability classes.